


a ghost is unfinished business

by orphan_account



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Turned Into a Ghost, Commission Does Not Exist, Gen, Good Brother Klaus Hargreeves, Good Brother Number Five | The Boy (Umbrella Academy), No Incest, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Protective Number Five | The Boy (Umbrella Academy), it's five. five's the ghost
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-23
Updated: 2019-09-22
Packaged: 2020-03-09 12:03:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 21,627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18916612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: “He never does anything by halves, you know. He gave us his everything years ago, when he decided he loves us, and the only thing you can really do is accept it and hope he’ll let you do the same.”Klaus remembers the way Five had jumped into a sea of flailing tentacles to knock Ben unconscious. He remembers how Five had dived headfirst into danger for Ben, the way he’d died so that Ben wouldn’t have to. And he thinks he understands, now, why Five and Six and Seven had been so close—the two had been the only ones who really knew Five, the only ones who saw past his arrogant and mischievous exterior and saw a core of loyalty that they returned wholeheartedly.inspired by theFive dies/Ben lives au by in-tua-deepon tumblr





	1. prologue

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Soulykins](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Soulykins/gifts).



> i hope you enjoy? this was kind of written when i was hopped up on caffeine
> 
> also note: the commission doesn't exist here because i said so. and neither does the whole allison/luther thing because even though it's canon it makes me Very Uncomfortable

Five’s ready. He _knows_ he is. He’s mastered spatial jumps. He’s double-checked his equations; he’s triple-checked them, quadruple-checked them, even quintuple-checked them. He’s had Vanya and Ben look them over, too. He’s _ready_.

_(“I can get us out of here, with this,” he tells them in the dead of the night, grasping his notebook carefully, his eyes scanning over the numbers yet again. “Once I practice temporal manipulation enough, I can work on bringing all of you, too.”)_

Their father, however, does not agree.

“A spatial jump is trivial when compared with the unknowns of time travel,” Reginald says, not even bothering to look Five in the eyes. “One is like sliding along the ice; the other is akin to descending blindly into the depths of the freezing water, and reappearing as an acorn.”

It sounds like complete nonsense to Five, as though dear old dad is merely making something up to convince him not to try. He glances up at Vanya, hoping for—for _something,_ for some kind of encouragement that isn’t a shake of her head and eyes filled with nothing but worry. _Don’t do it_ , she seems to say, and it—stings, the way she tries to warn him away from doing this, when only a few hours ago, he’d thought he’d had her support. But it makes sense, in a way, because she’s always been desperate for Reginald’s attention, has always been well-behaved in the hopes that he would accept her. Five isn’t like her, though.

(He doesn’t bother looking at Ben, who has always been the most mild-mannered, who has always been scared of his own power. It would be unfair, to ask him to support him in this, when he cracks so easily under pressure. But Vanya is as headstrong as Five is, equally as stubborn, and he hates how it all disappears as soon as she sees their father. He hates—)

“I’m not afraid,” he says, looking at Reginald again, rolling his eyes at the thought that his father thinks he can scare Five away from attempting to do the one thing that could free them from his control.

“Fear isn’t the issue.” Reginald cuts the food on his plate. “The effects it might have on your body, even on your mind, are far too unpredictable.”

 _Another fear tactic,_ Five thinks, scoffing.

“Now, I forbid you to talk about this anymore,” the man continues, finally turning to look at Five before going back to his breakfast. And Five—Five glances at Vanya once again, and he doesn’t know why he expects to see anything but the same wide, deploring eyes she’d had when he’d glanced over only a minute before, but the sight of it fills him with a disappointment that quickly morphs into a cold rage. He’s so _tired_ , suddenly, of everything—of the way Reginald treats them, like they are weapons or soldiers before they are children; he’s tired of the way everyone caters to their dear old father without a second thought, despite the hatred he _knows_ exists in some fashion within all of them.

He pivots on his heel and storms out, away from the stupid Academy, and lets his rage turn into a determination to prove his father wrong and time travel successfully. The equations flit into the forefront of his mind easily, and he holds his hands in front of him as he storms down the sidewalk, gritting his teeth with a frustration that’s aimed both at everyone and at no one at all. The blue light characteristic of his jumps crackles around his clenches fists, and he readies himself to open a portal, his frustration abating at the thought of rubbing his own achievement in his stupid father's face, and then—

_“A spatial jump is trivial when compared with the unknowns of time travel. One is like sliding along the ice; the other is akin to descending blindly into the depths of the freezing water, and reappearing as an acorn.”_

He stops.

Reginald Hargreeves is many things. He is rich. He is manipulative. He is incapable of seeing them as anything other than child soldiers. He is cold and unfeeling. But one thing he isn’t, is someone who makes baseless statements. And Five knows this. He knows that Reginald does not want him to learn time travel, does not want him to learn the one thing that could release him from Reginald’s cage; but he also knows that Reginald does not do things for no reason, does not say things unless he finds it important. And, sure, maybe he’d said all of that because he wanted to keep Five under his thumb. But maybe, just _maybe_ , his words have a meaning that Five does not understand.

And he hates not understanding things.

He hates not knowing. More importantly, he knows the danger of jumping headfirst into something he does not fully understand. So his pace slows, becomes less furious stomping and more aimless wandering as he lowers his fists and lets out a sigh, unwilling to go back to the mansion just yet. He has no desire to see Reginald’s face, has no desire to see any of his siblings.

He knows he’ll have to return eventually, because even he cannot survive on the streets with nothing but the clothes on his back, and he hates that he is still a child, still dependent on his father for survival. (This is but a flimsy excuse—he knows he could survive if he tried, could thrive, even, but—he could never leave them. He could never leave his siblings to the mercy of their father without him to take the brunt of it, could never leave them to suffer alone.) But he just—he just wants a few moments of peace, a few moments of freedom before it is taken away from him again.

So he wanders the streets, hands in his pockets, careful to look as though he has some kind of destination in mind so that no well-meaning adult tries to talk to him. Before long, he finds himself at a park, and he sits on a bench, his legs stretched in front of him, his head tilted up as he stares at the tree branches swaying gently in the breeze. He stays until the sun reaches the zenith, and then he sighs and stands, and in a crackle of blue, he is in his room just in time to hear his mother ring the bell for lunch.

He can’t help but feel relieved when Reginald does not acknowledge his presence with anything other than a glance and a “my office after lunch, Number Five.” The others shoot him looks that he ignores as he gives one short nod in response, unwilling to speak now that the oppressive air of the house feels so much heavier than before.

Later, he will sit in Vanya’s room and hug her awkwardly as she cries into his shoulder, apologizing over and over and sobbing about how worried she’d been that he’d never come back. Later, he will sit in Ben’s room and receive a hug that is equal parts worry and relief, and when he pulls away, the sadness in his eyes shows that he knows why Five had come back.

“Thank you,” he whispers, and Five thinks about what might have happened had he left—their father would no longer have one child to pile punishments on; Five’s siblings would have had no buffer, would have had no one willing to act out and rebel and take on their father’s anger to spare the rest of them.

“For what?” he says, even though he already knows. Ben smiles.

“You always think of us first,” Ben says, in lieu of a response. “Sometimes I wish you’d put yourself first instead.”

“I don’t,” Five says, and then he winces internally at how defensive he sounds, even to his own ears. He forces himself to smirk. “Haven’t you heard? I’m self-centered and narcissistic and have a superiority complex.”

He’s not fooling anyone.

* * *

 It’s a routine mission, a bank robbery similar to their debut two years ago.

They’re older now, though not by much—they have more experience, are more worn, more jagged at the edges. The years haven’t been good to them; they are more practiced with their powers, yes, but the years of competing with each other have done nothing but sharpen them into blades held in a hand linked to an unsteady mind. Five thinks, sometimes, that if he weren’t here to antagonize them into stabbing the blades into him, they’d be devolving into a never ending cycle of traded barbs and growing hatred.

And maybe that’s why Five is the only one who really _sees_ them, the only one who notices how much more control they have over their powers. And maybe that’s why he’s the only one who’s worried when Ben’s tentacles don’t stop after five seconds, like they usually do when he goes alone to take care of the robbers in the vault.

“Ben?” he yells, over the sound of the tentacles flailing around indiscriminately. “Ben?”

His hand rests on the knob of the vault, and he ignores the strange looks he gets from the rest of his siblings. Ben has always been quiet, he knows, but he’d been quieter than usual on the way to the bank, and he’d looked—off, somehow. And Five curses at himself for not saying anything, for not trying to do—something.

“Ben?!” he yells again, louder, straining his ears for any kind of response.

“Five?”

Five’s hand tightens around the knob at the weak voice that answers. The others, at this point, seem to have realized that something is wrong, but they only share mildly worried glances with each other and shift on their feet, unwilling to move closer. Klaus is the only one who makes to move forward, but he stops when Five shoots him a warning glare.

“Ben,” he says, turning the knob. Unconsciously, maybe, the others step back. “Ben, what’s wrong?”

He can’t hear anything over the tentacles still attacking the room. He breathes shallowly, quietly, and carefully listens for Ben. Finally, after a few agonizing seconds, he hears Ben’s voice again, fraught with pain and panic.

“I can’t—I can’t stop—can't control the—”

 _The tentacles_ , Five finishes mentally, and then he breathes out.

“Okay,” he says, more to himself than anyone else. “Okay.”

And then he pulls the door open.

* * *

Ben’s sick. He’s _been_ sick, for the past few days, ever since that—mission. He was a little sick before the mission too, apparently, and that’s why—well.

Klaus hasn’t been getting much sleep. It’s getting worse, now; he hears screams until he wakes, and even then they don’t stop, and he lays curled in his bed with his hands over his ears for hours. He often finds himself reaching for the drugs under his bed, the rolled joints in a box in the closet—but he always manages to pull himself back, manages to stop himself before he can.  

 _It’s only for a few days_ , he tells himself, even as he trembles and cries in the middle of the night. _Only until Ben gets better_.

Because he knows what Ben will ask of him when he is cured, and he knows that he cannot do it unless he is sober. If it were anyone else, he probably wouldn’t care enough to try, but—for Ben, for the only one who doesn’t look at him as though he were dirt beneath his shoe, the only one who doesn’t treat him like he is stupid, he’s willing to do this one thing. So he grits his teeth, and he shivers and sweats through withdrawal, and he waits.

He’s glad it only takes two days for Ben to stumble into his room, his eyes rimmed red, still recovering from the last vestiges of his illness.

“Klaus,” he says, trembling, his hands clutching at the blanket wrapped around his shoulders. “Klaus, _please_ —”

Klaus catches him before he can collapse on the floor.

“Yeah,” he says, pulling Ben towards his bed, “yeah. I’ll do it, just. Sit down before you hurt yourself.” He giggles, and he sounds a little unhinged even to his own ears. God, how many times has Ben done this for him? How the tables have turned.

Ben sits.

 _Okay_ , Klaus thinks, and he grabs the notebook he’d taken from Five’s desk only yesterday, when he’d finally been able to gather enough courage to step into his room. Years of Five yelling at any of them for going into his room, and now Klaus can’t enter it without fear of some form of retribution even though Five is—  

 _Okay,_ he thinks forcefully, _think about Five, and hope he’ll show up I guess—_

“ _Finally_ ,” he hears, in a voice he hasn’t heard in days. Ben looks at him, hope in his eyes, when Klaus’s head jerks up in surprise, staring blankly at the space between them.

“Took you long enough,” Five says, and he looks like he always has, with his uniform on, all neat and proper. “I came back the night of my death but you were too hopped up on drugs to see me so I decided to go check out some other places—did you know the Liberty Bell isn’t actually that big? By the measurements I looked up online I knew it wasn’t really, but for some reason I was still incredibly underwhelmed. I also went to see the Eiffel Tower in Paris—I can still use my spatial jumps, by the way—and I think people just hype up famous landmarks or objects too much because that was also very disappointing.”

He frowns, turning his gaze towards Klaus when he realizes Klaus isn’t responding.

He snaps his fingers in front of Klaus’s face. “Hello? Are you listening?”

Klaus startles, and then he looks down when he feels a tug on his sleeve, where Ben had leaned forward and grabbed it to get his attention.

“Klaus? Is he here?” he asks, and Klaus can’t do anything but nod numbly.

“Oh,” Ben breathes, “oh, that’s—good.”

And then, much to Klaus’s horror, Ben begins to cry.

“Why’s he crying?” Five asks, frowning, and then he turns to glare at Klaus. “Make him stop crying.”

“How?!” Klaus asks frantically, his hands fluttering anxiously.

“Just—hug him, or something! I don’t know!”

Well, it’s not like Klaus has any better ideas. He stumbles forward a bit, plopping down next to Ben and reaching to wrap his arms around his brother, but—

“I’m sorry,” Ben blurts out, and Klaus freezes.

“For what?” he asks, his voice echoed by Five’s. But Ben isn’t looking at him. He’s looking at the space Klaus had been staring blankly at before, where Five is standing with his arms crossed over his chest.

“I’m sorry,” he repeats, sniffling a little. “I’m sorry, Five, I should’ve—I wasn’t feeling good, I should’ve said something, and maybe dad would’ve let me stay home, and then you wouldn’t have—”

“Ben, you’re a fucking idiot,” Five says, when Ben chokes up before he can finish. “Klaus, tell him he’s a fucking idiot.”

“Uh,” Klaus says, licking his lips a little nervously, his gaze darting between Five and Ben. “Um, Five says that you’re. Being stupid.”

Five rolls his eyes. “I said he’s a fucking idiot, but close enough.”

Ben lets out a short, watery laugh.

“He probably worded it very differently,” he says, and laughs again when Klaus doesn’t refute him.

“It’s not his fault,” Five says, frowning again. Klaus motions for Ben to stay quiet.

“You couldn’t have known that would happen,” Five continues, facing Ben, and his frown deepens in thought. “Besides, it was _my_ choice to jump in, and I probably gave you a concussion or something, but I’d do it again without hesitation.”

Klaus would almost call this moment incredibly touching if a) he weren’t the only one who could hear Five, and b) Five hadn’t turned to him and followed up with:

“And if he’s so sorry about it, then he should hurry the fuck up and get over his cold instead of crying about it. There are more important things to be doing.”

 _More important things to be doing?_ he wonders, but he doesn’t ask; instead, he relays Five’s words when Five gives him another pointed stare, and Ben laughs again, dragging his sleeve across his face.

“Okay,” he says, and Klaus is glad that he seems almost back to how he normally is. “Okay, Five, I’ll—I’ll do my best.”

His words carry more weight than Klaus expects from a statement about recovering from a sickness, but—well, whatever. It’s none of his business, whatever it is. But the exchange seems a bit too private, and for a second he feels like some kind of intruder. The moment is over before he can do much more than fidget awkwardly, though; Ben nods to himself and stands, much more steady than he had been when he’d come into Klaus’s room.

“Thank you,” he says, and then he sways forward and hugs Klaus before pulling away and leaving.

The room is silent, when he leaves, and Klaus clears his throat before it becomes too awkward. He doesn't actually know what ghosts do, and it doesn't look like Five plans on leaving any time soon, so he figures he'll—break the ice a bit, maybe get to know his brother a bit now that he's dead. 

“Uh—”

“I’m going to go check on Vanya,” Five interrupts, and Klaus almost flinches. He’d forgotten about Number Seven, and he spares a moment now to worry about how she must be feeling about all this—she’d been closest to Five, because no one else would even give her the time of day, except for Ben; but Ben’s nice to everyone, so he doesn’t really count.

“Okay,” he says, but Five is already gone.

 _I’m glad that’s over with_ , Klaus thinks, and then he dives into his closet for his handmade joints. He’s fumbling with the lighter, one joint between his fingers, when Five reappears next to him and startles him into dropping both. He only has time to thank all the gods in existence that he hadn’t quite managed to actually create a spark with the lighter before Five attempts to grab his arms and, failing that, grabs his notebook and begins smacking at Klaus.

“Get up get up get up,” he says, watching impatiently as Klaus staggers to his feet. “Vanya’s crying in her room, go hug her or something.”

Klaus frowns. He’s never cared about Vanya, and he still can’t really bring himself to feel anything but complete indifference towards her. It's kind of hard to care about anyone but himself, really. It takes all he has just to survive in this hellhole; he doesn't have the capacity for anything more. “Why should I do that?”

“I don’t have actual lungs anymore,” Five says, “which means I could yell at you all night long and make sure you don’t sleep or something.”

And—there’s no way he knows. He _can’t_ know, about what Klaus goes through in the mausoleum when dear old dad decides that he needs more training. But he can’t help the hate that burns in his stomach, the fear he knows shows in his face, and he ignores the way Five’s face tightens with something akin to worry.

“Fine,” Klaus says huffily, trying to keep his voice light, and he leaves his room before Five can do or say anything more. He stomps down the hallway.

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Five follow.


	2. chapter one

Five spends the next few days testing the extent of what he can do as a ghost. He’d already figured out, during his short vacation, that he can’t interact with humans in any way (he can't even touch their clothes), but if he really concentrates, he can touch nonliving objects. And even then, he can't push too hard, because he'll end up phasing right through them. So he extends this and forms the hypothesis that he can’t interact with _any_ living thing, including plants. It only takes half an hour for him to prove it—he wanders throughout the mansion, attempting to touch everything. His hand passes through the grass in the courtyard, but he can still pick up a plant if it’s in a pot or vase.

He also spends a few minutes trying to punch down the statue they’d apparently erected in his memory, but it doesn’t seem like he has enough strength for it. It seems he can only move non living objects if they’re small or light.

He also checks in on his siblings once in a while, and it seems like most of them are fine—he’d only ever been close to Ben and Vanya before, so Luther and Diego and Allison are doing okay. Ben has been doing okay too, ever since Klaus summoned Five back, so the only one he’s really worried about is Vanya. Sometimes he sees her go into the kitchen and make a peanut butter and marshmallow sandwich and just stare at it blankly until Pogo walks in and startles her out of whatever daze she’s fallen into. He’s glad that she has Ben, though; sometimes Ben will check in on her, and Vanya always looks a little lighter, after.

Klaus has turned back to his drugs, though. Five doesn’t even bother visiting after he popped in the next day and saw Klaus smoking a joint. He knows Klaus won’t be able to see him anyway, so he checks in on him periodically but never tries to interact. He hates his brother’s drug habit; he’s done his research, he _knows_ what effects it’ll have on Klaus in the future, and he hates that Klaus can't see ghosts when he's high, because it means Five can't _do_ anything to help _anyone_ , but he also knows that it helps Klaus deal with something so scary that he can’t handle it on his own, so Five can’t bring himself to just dump Klaus’s stash into the dumpster.

He _does_ find out what the scary thing is, eventually, when he watches their father force Klaus through withdrawal (and Five will never admit to avoiding them for those few days, will never admit to the way he bit at his fingernails in frustration and anger). He follows as Reginald half-drags half-pulls Klaus towards the mausoleum in the courtyard and throws him in there, shutting the door and dragging the chain across the entrance before locking it.

“Remember, Number Four,” he says, “you need to conquer your fear.”

Five remembers exploring this area, once, when he was younger. The mausoleum had been old and musty, and almost like something out of a horror movie. He hadn't been able to help the small frisson of fear that ran up his spine, and he’d made a mental note to never go there again. But—Klaus is in there, and he’s curious as to what exactly Reginald means, is curious as to what exactly Klaus’s training is, so he braces himself and—jumps.  

The first thing he hears is the screaming. He clamps his hands over his ears, and it works to block some of it out—at the very least, it helps to make the voices less piercing. _They’re screaming for Klaus_ , he realizes, when he adjusts enough to the noise to let his hands down. Klaus, who is sobbing in the corner of the mausoleum across from the entrance, repeating the same words over and over again. Five thinks he can feel something in him sink, a little, at the sheer amount of fear in his brother’s voice. His stomach feels heavy with regret when he remembers what he'd threatened Klaus with the day he'd been summoned back, and he thinks he hates himself, a little, for telling Klaus he'd scream all night long when Klaus probably hears these screams every night in his dreams. 

“Klaus,” he whispers, crouching in front of his brother, but Klaus’s fearful sobbing only intensifies.

“Please leave me alone,” Klaus whimpers, and it’s too dark in the mausoleum to see anything clearly, but Five thinks he can imagine how Klaus looks, now—curled up on the floor, maybe, his hands over his ears, his eyes squeezed shut. And suddenly—suddenly, Five is so _angry,_ so full of a dark rage at both himself and their father; now that he knows what Klaus’s training is, now that he knows why Klaus suddenly disappears for days at a time and comes back a mess, he _hates_ their father even more, and he hates himself for letting this happen, for not trying hard enough to find out what exactly Klaus’s training consisted of.

And he turns this hatred, this anger, into a pointed blade—into a shield built with spikes. He stands, turns so that his back is to Klaus, and he glares at the ghosts surrounding them, the ghosts moaning and screaming for his brother.

“Go away,” he says, lowly, dangerously, and the ghosts nearest to them quiet slightly, though they do not leave, nor do they stop yelling. Five grits his teeth. _I’m sorry, Klaus_ , he thinks, and then—

“SHUT THE FUCK UP AND GO AWAY!” he roars, as loudly as he possibly can, and the ghosts—they don’t quite fall silent, but a few stop moaning, probably from shock. “GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM MY BROTHER OR _I WILL MAKE YOU WISH THERE WERE A SECOND AFTERLIFE.”_

He knows he’s only fifteen, and he’s only just over five feet tall, so he doesn’t exactly cut the most threatening figure, and he thinks his voice might have cracked a bit, but—well, the ghosts have stopped yelling, which means it worked, so he’s not going to look a gift horse in the mouth.

“Good,” he says approvingly, crossing his arms over his chest. “Now. All of you will stop yelling like three-year-olds, and talk like the actual mature human beings I know you are. No more screaming, no more crowding around my brother.”

He knows he sounds condescending, but he never claimed to be diplomatic.

“You will only talk when my brother says you can. If you try anything before that—” He bares his teeth in a facsimile of a smile, though the effect is probably lost considering how dark it is. “If you try _anything_ before that, I _will_ find a way to kill you again, and _it'll be as painful as I can make it_. Am I clear?”

Five doesn’t hear a response. He grits his teeth.

“I said, _AM I CLEAR?_ ”

He thinks he hears a quiet “yes,” so he relaxes and smirks. He kind of wishes there was some light in the mausoleum, because it feels like his gestures are going to waste. But that’s not what’s important right now.

“Klaus,” he whispers, crouching in front of his and he hates that he can’t offer any sort of comfort. Ben was always better at this kind of stuff than he ever was, but—Ben’s not here, now. So he swallows, and hesitantly opens his mouth again. “Klaus, they’ve stopped, you can relax now.”

And slowly, agonizingly slowly, Klaus’s sobbing lessens, and stops. Five can hear his clothes rustling, so he assumes Klaus is shifting into a different position, and he’s proved correct when he hears Klaus’s voice come from a higher place than before, from where he was presumably lying on the ground.

“Five?” Klaus asks, and then he giggles, high-pitched, when Five gives an affirmation. “Fiiiive,” he croons, and Five wishes that he were solid, if only so he could properly smack Klaus in the arm or something instead of futilely waving his hand through where he thinks Klaus’s face is.

“Yeah, it’s me,” he says, shuffling back a little, and then, because he’s allergic to emotion and he’s always been more of an action person anyway, he asks, “what would make this whole thing less horrible?”

Klaus seems to snap out of whatever weird state he was in and coughs a little before answering. “Some kind of light, maybe? And—the joints that are. In the closet? Or maybe some alcohol?”

“I can’t get you the last two things,” Five says. “Dad would know that you’re high or drunk when he comes back. But I can pop out and get a flashlight.”

And suddenly, there is an explosion of noise, and Five leans back a bit, his eyes wide, when he hears Klaus’s voice come from a place a lot closer than it was before.

“Wait, don’t—don’t leave me,” Klaus says, desperately, his eyes wide. “Don’t leave me alone with them, please—”

“It’ll be fine,” Five says, rolling his eyes, and once again, he wishes there was some light in the mausoleum so that Klaus could see his level of exasperation. The effect is truly wasted when no one can see. “I can still use my power, so I’ll be back in less than a minute.”

“But—the ghosts—”

“It’s fine. I told them to be quiet, and they know what’ll happen if they don’t, _right?_ ”

He raises his voice slightly near the end, pointedly aiming the latter half of his statement towards the ghosts and they chitter a bit, but stay mostly silent. He smiles smugly and almost gestures as if to say _see?_ but he stops when he realizes, again, that it’s impossible to really see anything in this place. Honestly, he doesn’t know why their father thinks that locking up a child in a pitch-black room with ghosts would help them get over their fear _of_ these ghosts, especially when these ghosts scream so loudly and incessantly. Reginald is smart, but sometimes Five questions his thought process.

“I’ll be right back,” he promises, and without waiting for an answer, he jumps to his room in a flash of blue. It’s still untouched, mostly, and he’s glad for that because it means he unearths his old flashlight quickly, and after a quick check to make sure it works, he jumps back into the mausoleum, grabbing a deck of cards as an afterthought.

“Here,” he says, flicking the flashlight on, and he’s greeted with the sight of Klaus staring at the light as though it were a gift from the gods. Five passes the light to him, who all but snatches it out of Five’s hand desperately, and Five takes this moment to study him. He looks pale, his hair plastered to his head with sweat, and he’s looking at Five with guarded eyes that look almost feverish.

Five sits in front of him and plops the deck of cards on the ground.

“Let’s play Go Fish or something,” he says, ignoring the way Klaus flinches slightly and turns his gaze to the blue and white box.

“...You brought cards?” Klaus asks, and Five opens the box impatiently.

“ _Ob_ viously! What else are we going to do until dad comes back?”

Klaus eyes him and takes the deck from Five’s outstretched hands. Five gives him a look that he hopes will prompt Klaus into sharing whatever he’s thinking, but apparently it doesn’t work, because he looks down instead and makes as though to shuffle, before pausing and staring at the cards.

“You wrote on these,” he says eventually, looking through the deck, and Five snatches the cards from his hands. There are equations scribbled over the numbers, but it’s still readable, in his opinion.

“Still usable,” he grumbles, giving the cards back, and Klaus shrugs as he takes them and begins to shuffle. He glances at Five a few times while he’s dealing the cards, and in another situation Five might not have cared enough to notice, but right now they’re alone, so it grates on his nerves enough for him to snap when Klaus finishes dealing and side-eyes him one more time while placing the rest of the deck between them.

“What?!”

Klaus freezes, his cards held in front of his face.

“...Nothing,” he says, and Five narrows his eyes, reluctantly letting the matter go when he sees Klaus’s lips stretch into a small, silly smile—the most genuine one he’s seen since he came back from his little adventure in the afterlife.

“Fine. Got any twos?”

“Go fish!”

* * *

 Klaus remembers, vaguely, that Five had asked him at some point to stop taking drugs as they played Go Fish in the mausoleum, but he can’t quite bring himself to care when he wakes up in the middle of the night to screams that echo in his ears and pierce his brain. Five’s gone somewhere, probably to go check on their siblings like he’s taken to doing every few hours, so Klaus scrambles off his bed and into his stash in the closet.

Klaus’s last stint in the mausoleum had felt almost like a dream; he’d played various card games with Five and the ghosts had stayed all the way on the other side of the mausoleum and for a few, wonderful hours, he’d been able to pretend that they didn’t exist, that he wasn’t a few feet away from the things that haunted his dreams. But they’re still _there_ , and he still sees them every time he closes his eyes, still hears them every time he tries to sleep, and he. Can’t. Handle it.

He thinks he sees Five come back while he’s smoking, but Five only stays long enough for Klaus to see the way his face falls in disappointment, along with what looks like a hint of worry and frustration, before he disappears in another flash of blue. Something in Klaus falls at the thought that Five is somehow disappointed in him, as though he thought Klaus could do better, and it stings, a little, to think that the most realistic, most pragmatic of all their siblings had somehow thought highly of Klaus in some way, and that Klaus had somehow let him down. But—well, Klaus is basically a big disappointment to everyone. It’s fine. Everything’s fine. And he spends the next few days blissfully high until his father decides that it’s time for another round of training.

Five had been checking on him periodically as he sweated and shivered his way to sobriety, and he always stared at Klaus with hooded eyes and lips pursed into a straight line. He always looked like he didn't want to be there. So it’s no surprise when he sees Five disappear in a flash of blue when as Reginald begins to drag Klaus to the mausoleum.

What _is_ surprising though, is the small click he hears after Reginald drags the chains across the door and locks it, and the way the mausoleum is suddenly flooded with light.

“Klaus,” Five says, and this time he’s holding Scrabble and standing in front of what looks like a floodlight. The other ghosts are blissfully silent, but Klaus averts his eyes from their bloody visages. He doesn’t need to add _more_ material to his nightmare fuel.

“How did you even get those?” Klaus asks eventually, when Five is laying out the board and dumping out the tiles.

“I took money from dad's room and went to the store and left enough on the counter to pay for them, and then I took them back to my room.”

Five picks out a tile.

“N,” he says, and his lips twist downward a bit. Klaus leans over and turns over a tile.

“E.”

Five clicks his tongue and mixes the tiles before picking out seven and placing them on his rack. They play quietly, the sound of the tiles clacking on the board echoing slightly. Klaus can’t shake the feeling of tension, though, and he glances up every so often at Five, who somehow radiates displeasure at something, and Klaus doesn’t think it’s because he was forced to go after Klaus in the game.

“Why are you mad?” Klaus asks, suddenly, and Five places his tile down with more force than usual. Klaus deflates a bit when he sees the word Five has put down; he can see the gap between their scores widening even further. Maybe he should read more.

“Why have you not stopped taking drugs?” Five asks, instead of answering. Klaus stiffens.

“It’ll kill you eventually,” Five continues, almost conversationally, and Klaus regains enough control over his limbs to finish placing his tiles on the board. “I’ve done research.”

One of Klaus's tiles landed on a triple word square, but he can’t bring himself to feel anything other than apprehension. Five finally looks up, and his eyes bore into Klaus’s, his gaze unwavering. It almost makes Klaus feel like a child being chastised by his parents.

“I’m scared!” he blurts out, and suddenly he’s angry. “I’m scared, okay?! Is that what you want to hear? I hear their screams in my dreams, and when I blink all I see is death, and this stupid “training” doesn’t help me at all, and the drugs makes everything stop—”

Five slams his fists on the board, and the tiles scatter around them. _Well, there goes our game_ , Klaus thinks, and then Five is up in his face.

“ _Why_ are you still scared?” Five asks, and then he stands, gestures to the ghosts that still linger. “Look! They’re not doing anything! I can keep them away, and we can do some _actual_ training instead of whatever the fuck dad thinks this is!”

“Why do you even care?!” Klaus asks, nearly yelling. “Why do you care what I do? Me being high doesn’t affect you at all!”

“You can’t fucking _see_ me when you’re high!” Five yells furiously. “You can’t see _any_ ghosts when you’re high! I can’t talk to you at all, I can’t help _anyone_ like this, I can’t do anything to help _you_ —”

“But why would you _want_ to?” Klaus yells back, interrupting Five. “Why do you _care?!_ ”

And suddenly, Five stills.

“Why do I care?” he repeats, his voice quiet and incredulous, and then louder, “you’re asking why I care?! It’s because you’re my _brother_ , you _fucking idiot!_ ”

And Klaus nearly falls over, shocked that a) Number Five actually admitted that he _cares_ , and b) Number Five actually seemed really, really, offended.

“Yeah, you’re stupid and you take entirely too many drugs for my liking, and you’ll probably grow up to be an alcoholic or something,” Five continues, and the fiery devotion in his voice, his eyes, are frighteningly intense. “But you are my sibling, my brother. And for you, for any single one of you, I would burn the world down without hesitation.”

Klaus opens and closes his mouth wordlessly. He stares, wide-eyed, at Five, who looks a bit like he’s regretting opening his mouth at all.

“Whatever,” Five mutters, standing, and Klaus snaps out of his daze.

“Five—”

But Five is already gone, with a flash of blue, and Klaus fears, for a moment, that Five won’t come back, that he’ll leave him alone with only the other ghosts for company. _At least there’s a light_ , he thinks faintly, staring at the Scrabble board and the tiles scattered across the floor. He starts gathering up the tiles, trying to ignore the fear creeping into him, and then he startles and nearly drops his handful of tiles when there’s another flash of blue.

“Five—”

“Here,” Five cuts in, before he can say another word. Klaus looks down to see a box in Five’s hand, this time for a 250 piece puzzle. He takes it, not knowing what else to do.

“Um—what about Scrab—”

“Shut up,” Five says, and he sits with his back towards Klaus, glaring at the ghosts on the other side of the mausoleum. Klaus knows that Five isn’t mad at the ghosts—there’s no reason for him to be—but he doesn’t ask. He doesn't want to push Five into leaving him here, alone. Instead, he finishes cleaning up Scrabble, and then he starts putting the puzzle together.

Five only ever moves to check if Reginald is coming back, and he never says a word to Klaus other than a short “he’s coming.”

With a flash of blue, the floodlight is gone, and so are the games.

* * *

 Klaus curls up next to Ben, later, when Five is wandering the halls, having recently taken up the habit. He tells Ben everything, as Ben reads with his book in one hand and his other gently resting on Klaus’s hair. He doesn’t know how to explain what exactly he feels when he remembers the unyielding certainty in Five’s words, the way they had sounded more like a truth than a promise.

Ben hums. “He’s an asshole, and he's arrogant and he probably has some kind of a god complex,” he says, and in any other situation, Klaus would laugh at how blunt Ben is now, and how he’s insulting Number Five without hesitation. But he can't bring himself too, not when he sees the way Ben's mouth curves up slightly at the sides, his smile sad but fond. “But he’s all yours, once you have him, and he’ll give you absolutely everything he has.”

And Klaus—wonders. He thinks, suddenly, of the way the house has become more unbearable since Five’s death, the way it seems like Reginald is being harsher on them than usual, as though punishing them for Five’s death. But maybe he isn’t. Maybe nothing’s changed about the way he treats them. Maybe it only feels like it’s changed because Five isn’t here anymore.

“It _i_ _s_ scary,” Ben says, turning the page in his book, and he sounds as though he’d lived with this knowledge for years. “But it’s also comforting, in a way, to know that you will always have at least one ally, when it feels like it’s you against the world.”

Ben places his book in his lap, next to Klaus’s head, and looks down at Klaus’s wide eyes. “He never does anything by halves, you know. He gave us his everything years ago, when he decided he loves us, and the only thing you can really do is accept it and hope he’ll let you do the same.”

Klaus remembers the way Five had jumped into a sea of flailing tentacles to knock Ben unconscious. He remembers how Five had dived headfirst into danger for Ben, the way he’d died so that Ben wouldn’t have to. And he thinks he understands, now, why Five and Six and Seven had been so close—the two had been the only ones who really knew Five, the only ones who saw past his arrogant and mischievous exterior and saw a core of loyalty that they returned wholeheartedly.

Klaus allows himself a few more minutes of peace before he shoves himself up.

“Okay,” he says, not really knowing who he’s talking to: Ben or himself. “Okay.”

He doesn’t say much else, but by the small smile on Ben’s face, he already knows what Klaus has decided.

* * *

“What are you doing?”

“Cleaning,” Klaus says simply, not looking back at Five. He continues dumping his rolled joints into the garbage can.

“Cleaning?” Five parrots.

“Yeah, cleaning.”

It’s silent, for a few more minutes, and when Klaus is pretty sure he’s dumped away all his drugs, he stands and takes the garbage bag out of the trash can. He turns, ready to throw it into the dumpster outside, but he pauses when he sees Five’s face.

There’s a small smile, completely different from all the ones he’d seen before that had always been smug or mischievous. This one is probably the most genuine one he's ever seen, and there’s a hint of pride in it that makes Klaus duck his head as he passes by Five on the way out so that Five can't see the slightly goofy grin that spreads across his face in response.

(Things aren't  _perfect—_ the path to sobriety will be a painful process, and Klaus will wake up every night for weeks with screams echoing in his ears, but Five will always be there with a cup of water and a patient gaze. So things aren't perfect, but— _someday_ , Klaus thinks, _someday, they might be._ )

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> planning for weekly updates after this


	3. chapter two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> time for some........shenanigans and science! 
> 
> aka i tried to be lighter and i rly hope it worked

It occurs to Five, suddenly, when he and Klaus are in the kitchen in the middle of the night, that their other siblings don’t know that Five is here even though it’s been a little less than three weeks. Ben knows, of course, because Klaus talks to him a lot. But he doesn’t really talk to the others, only ever interacts with them during meals or group training.

But back to the topic at hand—

“You should probably tell the others,” Five says, out of the blue, and Klaus startles out of the daze he’d fallen in as he stared at the mug of hot chocolate clutched in his hands, trying to recover from one of his nightmares.

“What?”

“Tell them that you can see me,” Five elaborates. “Tell our siblings I’m still here. Don’t tell Dad, of course. He’s a fucking asshole. And Pogo and Mom tell him everything, so I guess you shouldn’t tell them, either.”

Klaus lifts the mug to his lips and takes a sip. “Why should I tell them, though?” he asks, smacking his lips loudly as he eyes Five. Five stares at the hot chocolate enviously and wishes that ghostly food or something was a thing.

“They’re our siblings,” he says, shrugging. “And I can interact with nonliving things, so if I move something while one of them is around, then they’ll know it’s me. Probably. Then I can communicate with them myself. Actually, why didn’t we tell them sooner?”

“Probably because I was high or drunk ninety-nine percent of the time before,” Klaus says, raising his mug to his lips and making exaggerated slurping noises, following up with a long, drawn-out content sigh.

“True,” Five concedes, and then, “are you doing that on purpose? I _can_ and _will_ knock that mug off the table.”

Klaus brings his mug closer to his chest, all but hugging it. “Stop being grumpy just ‘cause you can’t have any.”

“Then stop trying to make me jealous!”

“My dear Number Five,” Klaus says, his eyes wide with faux innocence. “My wonderful brother from another mother—I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m simply enjoying this warm, sugary, and absolutely _exquisite_ —”

“Oh my god shut up or I’ll break the mug, don’t test me—”

“Okay, okay,” Klaus chokes out, his face red, very obviously trying not to laugh. Five frowns at him. Klaus gives up and shoves his face into the blanket to muffle his laughter, leaving Five to glare futilely at his shaking shoulders.

“Anyway!” Five says loudly, and he shifts a bit, adjusting himself to a slightly more comfortable position on the table. He’s glad that Klaus is taking a while to compose himself, because this way he can’t see the way Five’s frown curls upwards into a small, fond smile, satisfied that the haunted look in Klaus’s eyes has faded.

“Y-yeah,” Klaus manages to say in between rounds of giggling that breaks out every time he looks up at Five, who’s gone back to his default neutral expression. “Yeah, I’ll tell them. During one of our breaks or something.”

Reginald usually lets them do whatever they want after dinner. Within reason, of course. They usually spend it enjoying some alone time, or getting in some extra training in Luther and Diego’s case, but it probably is the best time to get them all together.

Five shrugs. “Okay.”

“Cool,” Klaus says, and then, looking Five straight in the eye, he picks up his mug again and finishes off the drink with an excessive amount of moaning, the likes of which Five had only ever seen in those stupid dramas he’d been forced to watch when Allison made them all accompany her to the theater after they sneaked out of the house.

Five rises to his feet. “Okay, that’s  _i_ _t_.”

“Oh no,” Klaus says, but he’s grinning widely even as he jumps up and quickly places the mug in the sink before sprinting back to his room, Five chasing after him with a murderous glint in his eyes.

“I _made_ that for you out of the goodness of my heart,” Five yells, “and _this_ is how you thank me—”

* * *

 Five sits cross-legged on Klaus’s desk, watching as his siblings trail in slowly, one by one, all but Ben wearing the same confused look. Klaus bounces in after them, closing the door behind him.

“Now,” he says, his face and voice deadly serious as he sits on his bed and scans everyone’s faces. They’re all sitting or standing in various places around the room—Allison and Luther are sitting across from Five, against the wall; Diego is leaning next to the door, twirling one of his knives around; Vanya looks awkward from where she is sitting on the floor next to Ben in front of the desk, fidgeting a bit and avoiding everyone’s gazes.

“You’re probably wondering why I gathered you all here today,” Klaus continues, and Diego rolls his eyes.

“Just get to the point,” Five says, at the same time Diego says, “stop with the dramatics and just tell us.”

“Fine, fine,” Klaus placates, pouting a little. “Okay, so—”

He stops abruptly, frowning, and Five leans forward a bit, equal parts concerned and impatient.

“What’s the problem?”

Klaus turns to him slightly. “I was just trying to think of a nice way to break the news but I can’t exactly think of one—”

“Just tell them I’m here, it’s not that hard—”

“What news?” Allison asks, and she’s starting to look even more confused than before. “And who are you talking to?”

“Are you dying?” Luther asks next, a bit accusingly. “Do you have cancer, because of all that smoking you’ve been doing? _Jesus Christ,_ Klaus—”

“Hey!” Klaus exclaims, pointing defensively at Luther’s face. “I’ll have you know I’ve been clean for at _least_ three days, and no, I do _not_ have cancer, thank you very _much_ —”

“Calm down, I’m sure he’ll tell us if you give him some time,” Ben says, and everyone turns their gazes to him. He stares back, unruffled, and slowly, they begin to calm down.

Five used to wish he could be like Ben, sometimes; where he was volatile and easily angered, Ben was always composed and calm. It’s easy, to surprise Ben or make him laugh, but he was always the last to get mad, the hardest to provoke. And Five wishes he could apologize to his siblings, sometimes, for snapping at them and digging into them with barbed words, but—he’s dead now, and there’s no way he’s going to tell Klaus to apologize for him. It feels too much like a cop-out, when he could so easily have said something when he was alive. He was too focused on protecting everyone from their father that he never thought to protect them from himself.

Ben’s always been calm, though; when he’s around, he seems to round their jagged edges in a way that no one else can. Five’s glad that he’d died, instead of Ben—if Ben had died, he thinks something may have splintered irreparably in this little dysfunctional group that they call a family.

“ _T_ _hank_ you, Ben,” Five says, when the room settles, though he knows Ben can’t hear him.

Klaus glances at him and clears his throat imperiously. The room is quiet, for a few moments, as Klaus scrunches his face up in thought. Eventually, he shrugs and points a thumb at his desk.

“Five’s ghost is here,” is all he says, and there are a few seconds of shocked silence before the room descends into chaos.

“Five’s here?” Vanya asks, eyes wide with hope.

“You couldn’t tell us this sooner?!” Luther nearly yells.

Allison shoots to her feet. “What do you mean he’s _here?_ Where is he exactly?”

Diego still seems frozen in shock. He hasn’t moved at all, not even to pick up the knife that’s fallen from his fingers.

“ _G_ _od_ ,” Five groans, dropping his head in his hands, “this whole family’s a fucking mess.”

Klaus sticks his tongue out at him. “ _That’s_ why I was trying to think of a better way to say it!”

“Well I don’t think there really _was_ a better way to tell them, anyway!”

“Five?” Vanya asks, and she’s maneuvered herself so that she’s on her knees, facing the general area Klaus had been talking at, her eyes darting all over as though to find a hint of Five’s presence, though there’s no way she can see him.

“Yeah, I’m here,” Five sighs.

“He’s sitting on the desk right here,” Klaus says, tumbling off his bed so he can get to his desk and tap it a little in front of where Five is sitting.

Vanya nods and focuses her gaze around that area. “I miss you,” she says quietly, and Five wishes, not for the first time, that he could actually touch people. His hand hovers over Vanya’s head before he clenches his fist and draws back.

“I know,” he says. “I’m sorry.”

Klaus pats her on the head for him, and she turns to give Klaus a slightly watery smile.

“Why’s he sitting on the desk?” Allison asks.

“He likes to feel tall,” Klaus shoots back immediately, and then his eyes widen with dramatic horror.

“Oh, dear,” he says, watching as Five jumps off the table, his face dark. “I’ve made a terrible mistake.”

Five grins vindictively and grabs a pillow from the head of Klaus’s bed. “Yes,” he says. “Yes you have.”

The others are treated to the sight of a pillow flying at Klaus as he alternates between laughing and melodramatically shrieking, not trying that hard to defend himself. Diego breaks out of his shocked daze and watches for a bit before running out of the room only to bring more pillows, one of which he throws at Luther’s face, and it dissolves into a three-way pillow fight with Klaus, Diego, and Vanya on one team, and Allison, Luther, and Ben on the other, with Five chucking pillows at all of them indiscriminately.

By the end of it, they’re all laughing and lying in various states of disarray on the floor, and for a moment—for a moment, Five thinks sees the kind of family they might have been if they were ordinary.

* * *

 “How long have you been able to see Five?” Allison asks, breaking the silence they’d all fallen into. They’re all half on top of each other, with Luther at the bottom of the pile. Klaus hums and shifts a bit from where he’s lying with his legs on Ben’s stomach.

“A few weeks, I think. Two days after he died.”

“Why didn’t you say anything sooner?” Luther grunts. He’s lying face down, his head turned to the side to avoid Diego’s feet, which are lying on the other side, probably on purpose.

“Probably because I was always high!” Klaus answers brightly, raising his head slightly and then letting it flop back down on Diego’s stomach, who lets out a little _oof_ and then swipes at Klaus’s face as retaliation.

“Is-is he...o-okay?” Diego asks, after their brief scuffle that mostly consisted of Klaus rolling around until Diego gave up.

“Well he’s kind of dead...” Klaus begins, and Ben slaps his ankle. Klaus digs his foot a bit into Ben’s stomach in retribution.

“Tell them I’m fine,” Five says. “It’s pretty great, I can do whatever I want. It sucks that I can’t interact with people, but I can choose to interact with objects, so it’s fine.”

“I’m glad he’s happy,” Vanya says softly, when Klaus relays Five’s words. They are silent, for a few more minutes, and then Luther starts moving, dislodging everyone from their spots and ignoring their grumbling. They rearrange themselves, sitting up and facing each other, forming a sort of lopsided circle on the floor, before Luther speaks up.

“If he can interact with objects, why can’t he just wear some gloves or something and then try to interact with us?”

Sometimes, Klaus forgets that Luther does, actually, have some qualities that make him a good leader. He only ever thinks about the fact that Luther’s the only one that their father would allow to lead them due to his unwavering loyalty to the old man. “...I didn’t think of that,” Klaus says, and then he turns to Five. “Five?”

Five has hidden his face in his hands. “I’ve been so stupid,” he says, his voice muffled, and he sounds a bit angry.

“Well,” Klaus says, trying to sound comforting, “you _were_ kind of busy, right?”

“Doesn’t change the fact that I should’ve thought of that earlier.”

“Better late than never?”

“I can’t hear Five,” Luther interrupts, “but I think I can assume he hadn’t thought of that?”

He looks a little proud, which. Understandable. Klaus would be proud if he’d thought of something before Number Five did, too.

“No, neither of us did.”

“Shouldn’t we try it now, then?” Ben asks. “An experiment to see if it works.”

“A wonderful idea, Ben,” Five says, hopping off the bed. “Klaus, do you have any gloves?”

“I think I remember having a pair. I’ll look through my closet.” Klaus scrambles to his feet and circles around his siblings to his closet. “You guys can look through the drawers or something.”

Everyone stands and scatters around the room, digging through Klaus’s clothes in search of his pair of gloves. There’s a moment when Allison lets out a loud “ah!” and for a second, everyone thinks she’s found the gloves, but she’s holding a skirt in her hands and glaring at Klaus accusingly. It’s a skirt she thought she’d lost months ago, apparently.

In the end, Klaus does manage to find his gloves in the pocket of one of his many jackets, and he pulls it out with a loud cheer that makes everyone stop in their search and gather around the middle of the room.

“Here, Five!” Klaus beams, presenting the gloves to his brother. Five stares at them as they dangle from Klaus’s fingers, but doesn’t take them.

“...Are those...Hello Kitty gloves?”

Klaus’s grin widens. “Yup!”

Five stares at the bright pink fabric for a few more seconds before snatching them up and sticking his hands into them. “If anyone laughs,” he grumbles, “I’m gonna make their life miserable.”

Klaus nods, only because he can’t trust himself to keep down the laugh that bubbles in his throat. Five flexes his fingers—the gloves are a bit small, because Klaus had gotten them when he was maybe half the age he is now, but they fit well enough for Five’s purposes. The others have a constipated look on their face as they stare at the floating Hello Kitty gloves.

“I’m gonna try to touch someone now,” Five announces, even though no one can hear him but Klaus, who nods just in time to receive a hard flick on his forehead.

“Ow!” he yelps, clutching the spot that Five had just attacked. “Rude!”

Five only gives him a smug smile. “It works,” he says, a bit redundantly, but then—

“Hey.” Diego frowns. “I can’t—I can’t see the gloves anymore.”

Klaus frowns. “What do you mean?” he asks, and then he gestures to where Five hasn’t moved, the gloves still on his hand. “They're still there.”

“No, he’s right,” Allison says. “I can’t see it either.”

“Me neither,” Luther agrees, echoed by Vanya and Ben.

Five stares down at his hand, more specifically the glove, thoughtfully. “Maybe if I touch something for too long, it becomes part of this—whatever this is? Astral plane? Ghostly realm?” He tries to flick Klaus in the forehead again, but his finger passes straight through, looking weirdly glitch-y and blue.

Klaus relays Five’s theory, and Ben frowns a bit.

“But you said he was sitting on that desk, before,” he says. “Wouldn’t the desk have become invisible to us too, then?”

“True,” Five concedes, peeling the gloves off his hands and dropping them on the floor. He stares down at it contemplatively. “Maybe it only applies to things I can carry in my hands, like a book, or these gloves.”

“I think this _does_ confirm one of my theories, though,” he continues, looking up. “On why I can touch or hold items but not living beings. Items are neither dead nor alive; they were never alive in the first place, and because of this, you can’t classify them as dead, either. They exist in an in-between, until held or worn by a living or dead being. ”

“Oh,” Ben says, nodding, when Klaus tells them what Five had said. “So, you can’t touch clothes or anything because at that point it counts as part of the living?”

“And we can’t see the glove anymore because it counts as part of a ghost, now?” Vanya adds.

Klaus is kind of awed by the leaps of logic they're making. It makes sense, when he thinks about it, but he doesn't think he could ever reach those conclusions on his own. His siblings are...pretty amazing, actually.

“In theory,” Five says, and then he points down at the glove. “Klaus, tell them to say something if it becomes visible to them, and as soon as possible.”

Klaus obeys, and there’s a chorus of _okay_ ’s before the others turn their attention to the part of the floor he gestures at, staring at it with laser-focus. He thinks this is the most cooperative they’ve ever been—Diego and Luther haven’t gone at each other’s throats yet.

“It looks like it’s…fading in?” Diego says eventually. "Really fast."

“Interesting,” Five muses. “Objects probably gradually return to the in-between state when it is not being worn or held.”

Allison reaches out and picks the gloves up, which Klaus assumes means that it’s fully corporeal again. Five must assume the same, because he starts muttering to himself.

“Took a little less than half a minute...can probably assume it takes the same amount of time to disappear from the living realm...”

If he had a notebook, Klaus has no doubt that Five would be scribbling some notes into it right now. Which—hey, that’s a thought. Maybe he could get Five a notebook and a pen and then Five could just keep it with him all the time to write in.

Klaus suddenly frowns when he remembers something. "Five, didn't you have to hold things before? Like when you made me hot chocolate."

"Maybe it takes longer when the object is just being held, rather than being worn," Five answers, at the same time Allison teasingly coos, "aw, Five made you hot chocolate?"

Klaus gives her a nod and a smile that turns into a shit-eating grin when he turns back to Five. "Yup! Isn't he just the _nic_ _est_  brother? So _wonderful_ and sweet."

Five studiously ignores the both of them. "Whatever," he says. "Onto more important things; we should try to experiment more, see how long it takes for an object to move into the ghost realm when it's being held." He picks the gloves up from where Allison had placed them back onto the floor, and—

Ben bursts out laughing.

“I’m sorry,” he chokes out, when the others turn to look at him. “I’m sorry, I just—I know he's not wearing them anymore, but I keep imagining Five wearing those gloves with that _face_ —you know, that face he makes when he’s thinking really hard, the really serious one—and I—”

“Oh, thank _god_ ,” Allison breathes, “I wasn't the only one.”

And suddenly everyone’s falling on top of each other as they laugh.

Five sighs. “Et tu, Ben,” he says woefully, and Klaus loses any sort of control he'd had, all but collapsing against Vanya, who’s giggling quietly. Five rolls his eyes and tries to glare at them, but the effect is lessened by the smile Klaus can see tugging at his lips.

“I hate you all,” he says, but the words don’t have any heat behind them.

“Aww, we love you too, Five,” Klaus returns sweetly in between bouts of laughter.

They take a few more minutes to settle—every time they stop laughing, someone lets out a little snort, which sets them all off again. They only manage to stop when Klaus's eyes drift towards the clock and he nearly has a heart attack, jumping to his feet in panic.

“Okay, guys! If anything around you moves when you’re alone, then you know that it’s Five. Now shoo!” Klaus ushers them towards the door. “It’s nearly 10! I need to get ready for bed so I can get my full ten hours of beauty sleep!”

“Might need a bit longer than that,” Allison mutters as she leaves, smirking, and Klaus sticks his tongue out at her back.

“Uh...thanks for telling us, about Five,” Luther says, awkwardly, and he pats Klaus on the shoulder once before leaving.

“‘Night,” Diego says with a short nod.

“Bye, Five,” Ben says, echoed by Vanya. “Good night, Klaus.”

“Good night!” Klaus’s eyes dart to Five for a second. “From me and Five,” he adds, and they smile before leaving.

With a small click, the door shuts behind them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im so sorry @ spacemom.......i was writin the glove thing and then i was like "wait ben had a book but pogo didnt see a floating book" and then i made up all these weird rules for ghosts in like a minute
> 
> me: i've.......invented ghost science laws  
> my brain: [ryan from buzzfeed voice] you didn't invent shit  
> me: i've invented them
> 
> anyway i have a job interview on tuesday (hoo boy Big Anxiety) and if all goes well and i get the job, updates might slow down (i dont have much of a chapter buffer to speak of..........) i'll still do my best though!! 
> 
> also!!! big thank you to everyone who reviewed!! i would've gone through and replied to everyone but i realized it would just be me saying "thank you" in various ways so i didn't. but seriously, big thanks. every single one of them made my day


	4. chapter three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey sorry im late the week was busier than i expected and also i binged good omens (twice, in fact) and it's probably the only thing im gonna be able to think about for the next month
> 
> chapter is barely edited, might come back to it later, but it was already a day late so i figured i'd just post it anyway

“When do you think you’ll be ready to start training?” Five asks, just as Klaus is putting down a draw two. Five stacks a draw two on top of it.

Klaus pouts and starts drawing cards from the stack in the middle. “Training for what?” he asks, though Five is pretty sure that he knows and is just being deliberately obtuse.

“Training to help you get over your fear of ghosts,” he says anyway, putting down a blue eight. “Uno,” he adds, almost as an afterthought, but he doesn’t need to worry about Klaus catching him out for being too slow, since he isn’t concentrating too hard on the game right now.

“...Do I really need to?” Klaus asks, almost plaintively, as he puts down a draw four.

Five draws four cards from the deck. “Yes. I’m here now, but we never know what’ll happen in the future. It’s better for you to learn how to deal with ghosts on your own. You can’t just rely on me, it won’t turn out well for anyone. What color?”

“Yellow.” Klaus lays down a yellow five and sighs. “I just—all they do is scream, and try to make me do things I don’t want to, and some of them look horribly mangled and—”

“Yes,” Five says, putting down a green five, much to Klaus’s visible consternation; it seems he doesn’t have any greens or fives in his hand, because he draws a card from the deck and frowns at it. “I know. But Dad, unfortunately, _did_ have the right idea—you need to stop being afraid of them, so you can live easier.”

“Live easier?”

“You’ll be seeing ghosts every day, Klaus. They won’t all be pretty. Some might look as horrible as the ones in here.”

“Why _do_ they look all bloody and maimed, anyway?” Klaus asks, scrunching his nose when the card he draws is also neither green nor a five. “You look normal. They look like how they died, I think, but you—”

“Died on impact when one of Ben’s tentacles slammed me into the wall, I think,” Five interrupts. “Right after I knocked him unconscious. Them tearing me apart was a thing that happened after I had already died. So I do look the way I did when I died, you just can’t tell because the damage was all internal.”

Klaus visibly looks as though he’s trying not to think too hard about that mission. “Right. Okay.”

“Anyway,” Five says, “Dad may have been right about you needing to get over your fear, but the way he’s decided to do it is really bad, actually, and I’m not sure what made him think it would be effective.”

“What are your plans for training, then?”

“We wean you into it,” Five says, putting his cards face down on the ground of the mausoleum. “Proper exposure therapy, not whatever bullshit Dad thought he was doing.” He leans forward. “We’ll go little by little. I’ll bring over the ghost that looks the least mangled—” he gestures to the ghosts on the other side of the mausoleum— “and you just need to work your way up to looking at them and then trying to talk to them.”

That sounds manageable. Definitely a lot easier.

“Okay,” Klaus agrees. “That sounds—a lot better than what my training was before.”

Five snorts. “Of course.”

“We can try next time?” Klaus suggests hopefully, a little questioningly. He relaxes when Five nods and picks up his cards again.

“Don’t force yourself to do this,” Five says pointedly, as they resume playing. “You need to _want_ this, or it won’t work. And pushing forward too fast won’t help either of us, understand?”

And, see—the thing is, Klaus _doesn’t_ want to do this. He doesn’t want to look at the ghosts that linger in the edges of his vision, doesn’t want to talk to the ones that scream in his face and ignore his own suffering. All Reginald has done by throwing him into this mausoleum over and over again is made him more afraid of the ghosts. But—for one, the thought of not feeling that overwhelming fear of ghosts every time he sees them is...incredible. Something he never thought could happen.

For another, it’s Five. And Five, he’d learned, over the course of these few months, is probably the most headstrong and dedicated of his siblings. And he’d decided to put all his energy toward helping Klaus, which is probably just because Klaus is the only one who can see him, but Klaus also knows that he can trust this single-minded determination—he can trust _Five_. So...

“Next time,” he says, more firmly than before. “We can start next time.”

Five looks up, searches his face for—something, and he must find it, because a satisfied grin stretches his mouth and he nods.

“Good.”

* * *

 Their first mission since Five died comes soon after their sixteenth birthday, which they spend just like any other day. Reginald Hargreeves does not believe in a sweet sixteen, or whatever else they do in those teen dramas. Not that it really matters to Five, of course, since he’s dead, and therefore wouldn’t have really been able to enjoy the festivities if they had any. He _had_ received a notebook and pencil from Klaus— _“To thank you for helping me out,”_ Klaus says sincerely, and Five is almost touched until he ruins it by following it up with, _“you soft little marshmallow!”_ —but other than that, it’s a day that passes by like any other.

Their mission, however, is not very ordinary.

For one, this is their first mission where Five isn’t present—physically, of course. As for incorporeally, he’s standing in the empty space they’d left open for him, either as a courtesy or because they’d simply fallen into old habits, as though he were still alive. For another, although Klaus is the most sober he’s been in years, the amount of sleep he’s lost due to his nightmares means that he isn’t as clear-headed as he should be.

The day of this mission starts out like any other. They wake up at various times in the morning—Five wanders the halls and returns to Klaus’s bedroom just as he wakes up, at 8AM. Klaus then rushes around to freshen up before breakfast at 8:30 while Five watches him a bit judgmentally.

Five’s a bit worried about the dark bruises under Klaus’s eyes—he knows Klaus hasn’t been sleeping well, because he’s always there to watch as Klaus screams himself awake from a nightmare. (Sometimes he looks at his hands as they phase through his brother, and he clenches them into fists and curses his own powerlessness, unable to do anything but watch as his brother suffers.)

“I’m fine,” Klaus says, whenever Five stares at the bags under his eyes for a little too long. He’s become adept at reading Five, it seems. He smiles and raises the mug in his hands—hot chocolate, sometimes, or maybe tea, but never alcohol. No more of that. Five makes sure of it. “I’m fine,” Klaus repeats, though he looks anything but. “I’m already less scared of ghosts than before, because of your training, so the nightmares should stop soon, too. Right?”

“Right,” Five always agrees, because there’s really nothing else he can do. He can only hope that Klaus won’t be forced on a mission soon; there are so many ways it can go wrong now that Klaus is incredibly sleep deprived. At the very least, if Klaus _is_ forced on a mission, Five hopes that it won’t be a mission that forces him to be too active.

But with their luck, of course, the mission that comes on this completely ordinary day is anything but.

The alarm blares throughout the mansion a little after breakfast, and immediately, Five is at Klaus’s side, watching as he hurriedly dresses up for the mission. Everyone is running around, preparing as quickly as they can, and for once, Five isn’t a part of it. Not that he’s complaining, of course.

“Don’t push yourself,” Five reminds, frowning, as he follows Klaus, who hurries down the stairs to meet up with the others. “You haven’t been getting enough sleep, your reaction time and hand-eye coordination will be impaired—”

“Yeah, yeah,” Klaus responds, a bit breathlessly, skidding to a halt next to Ben in the entrance hall. Reginald looks them over with a critical eye and then waves them out.

It doesn’t take long for them to reach their destination. They’re dealing with terrorists, this time—nothing out of the ordinary, but still a level up from the bank robbers they’re more used to fighting.

Five listens as Luther relays the plan—and it’s a good one, really. Luther can be a good leader, when he puts his mind to it. It’s just that sometimes, he concentrates too hard on the bigger picture and doesn’t look at the individuals. This is evidenced by the way he doesn’t seem to notice Ben’s face paling when he tells Ben to use his tentacles to take care of the terrorists that are most removed from civilians.

This _is_ Ben’s usual job, of course, so it’s not like Luther’s asking him to do something completely out of the ordinary. But—Five watches the way Ben’s face rapidly ashens, the way he looks like he’s going to be sick, and he _knows_ , suddenly, that Ben isn’t over Five’s death yet. He’d seemed fine during his training, the times Five had checked up on him, but there’s a difference, he supposes, in the kind of atmosphere that comes with using his tentacles during training, rather than during an actual mission.

The last time Ben had used his power during a mission, it had been the cause of Five’s untimely demise.

And _god_ , Five wants to just—punch Luther’s stupid face, or something, for not noticing. He wishes he could grab Luther by the collar and shake him a bit, try to knock some sense into that monkey brain of his. But he’d get in trouble, probably, and that’s not exactly something that he wants to do unless he absolutely _has_ to. Except.

 _Wait_ , he remembers, feeling a bit stupid. _I’m dead. I can’t get in trouble for anything._

He’d gotten a bit too caught up in routine, it seems.

And so, he stalks forward until he’s in front of Luther and proceeds to punch at Luther’s chest, the highest place he can reach comfortably. It’s strangely cathartic, even though it doesn’t connect—his fist passes through with a staticky blue, as expected. What he _doesn’t_ expect, however, is Luther flinching and glancing down with a confused frown, his sentence cutting off midway.

“What’s wrong?” Allison asks, her brows furrowed slightly.

Luther shakes his head and looks up again. “It’s nothing, I just...it felt really cold, all of a sudden.”

Hm. This bears more experimenting.

Five throws a punch at Luther’s stomach and watches as Luther stops talking again, frowning down at his stomach with increasing confusion.

“What…?”

Klaus, it seems, can’t hold back his laughter much longer, because he lets out a loud snort.

“Do you know what’s happening?” Luther asks severely, focusing his gaze towards Klaus while Five continues to punch him in various places. This is purely for experimentation. He’s definitely not doing this because it’s fun.

“Five’s, uh...Five’s punching you. A lot.”

“And I don’t plan on stopping until you change your stupid fucking plan,” Five says, still punching, at the same time Diego says, “wait, Five’s with us?”

They ignore him.

“Can you make him stop?” Luther asks, sounding a mix of resigned and exasperated.

“Uh—”

“I’ll stop when you stop making little bitch ass plans!”

Klaus bursts out laughing at that, and somehow manages to choke out, “he—he said—he said he’ll stop when you—when _you_ stop making, quote unquote, “bitch ass plans.””

Luther rolls his eyes a bit, disbelieving. “I’m sure that’s not what he said.”

“No, that’s exactly what he said,” Klaus says, looking a bit like Christmas has come early. “I kid you not.”

Five has graduated to sticking his middle finger up in front of Luther’s face, now.

“He’s flipping you off now too,” Klaus adds helpfully.

“Why—whatever.” Luther rubs his forehead. “Why does he not like my plan?”

Well, that’s a first. Luther’s actually willing to listen, for once.

“Just...don’t make Ben use his powers, unless he really has to,” Five says, subsiding a bit. “At least, until he talks to someone about the trauma he probably got from last time.”

“The trauma?” Klaus asks, and then, “oh, right. That.”

“Yes, that,” Five says impatiently. “Now tell Luther.”

Klaus tells Luther.

“But we need him,” Luther disagrees. “It’s the most effective way to take care of a large number of enemies.”

“‘Most effective,’ my ass,” Five hisses.

“And anyway,” Luther continues, “we don’t have time for this. We need to move. Ben, can you handle it?”

Ben still looks a bit sick, but he nods anyway. “Yeah, I’ll be fine.”

“You’d better be,” Five mutters angrily.

They all scatter to do their respective jobs, though Ben lingers a bit longer.

“Thanks for worrying about me, Five,” he says, looking vaguely at where Luther had been standing before. Then he turns and leaves. Klaus turns to Five with a huge smile. It looks a bit deranged, when coupled with the dark bags under his eyes.

“You really are just a big softy!”

“Shut up, I’ll kill you—”

* * *

 The mission goes smoothly, contrary to Five’s expectations. Ben manages to do his job well, his control impeccable, as it usually is nowadays. They round up the terrorists nicely, with barely any casualties—they’ve gotten a lot better now, at this whole fighting crime thing. So really, the mission goes very smoothly; that is, if one isn't counting Klaus’s performance.

What Klaus usually does it try to contact any ghosts connected to the enemies, to see if he can learn anything that would work to the team’s advantage. He hates doing that, though, so he always tells his siblings that he couldn’t contact any ghosts, or that the ghosts weren’t helpful at all. They believe him in that way that your siblings do when you tell them you cleaned your side of the room, only they know that you merely took everything off of the floor and shoved them into the closet—meaning, they don’t believe him at all, but they don’t bother to say anything about it.

The other thing that Klaus does is fight a few of the enemies, hand-to-hand combat. They all learned how to fight, in the academy. Although Luther and Diego and Ben have powers that are more combative, Allison and Klaus still jump into the fray and help out a bit.

This time, however, Klaus is sluggish and so very, very _tired_. And it’s a miracle, really, that he hasn’t completely fucked something up yet, even though it’s been pretty obvious that he isn’t at his best. But then—he stumbles. And suddenly there is a gun pointed at his face, and he is wide awake now, but it’s too late for him to move—his opponent’s finger is already squeezing down on the trigger, and Five instinctively jumps so that he is beside Klaus, even though he can’t do anything to help, and—

A tentacle wraps around the man’s stomach and picks him up to slam him onto the floor.

“Th-thanks, Ben,” Klaus calls out a bit shakily, his eyes wide, and he shares a relieved glance with Five, whose expression very quickly morphs into one of stern anger.

“Go sit out,” Five says, a little snappishly. “You’re no use to anyone like this, you’re too exhausted to fight properly—”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever. I know.”

“You’re a fucking idiot,” Five hisses. “You’ll get yourself hurt, or killed—”

“I’m fine,” Klaus sighs. He’s managed to get away from the fighting, ignoring Luther’s yelling, and now he sits in a corner somewhere, his adrenaline rush already leaving. He leans his head against the wall and closes his eyes. “Won’t do it again,” he says, slurring a bit. “Don’t really want to die, you know.”

He thinks Five mutters something in response, or maybe to himself, but he passes out before he can hear.

* * *

 “Number Four,” Reginald says, in that usual stern way of his, and Five watches as Klaus flinches slightly.

They’re in Reginald’s office, the old man sitting behind his desk as per usual, Klaus standing in the middle of the room, facing him. Five stands next to Klaus, hoping that Klaus will feel at least a little more comfortable in the oppressive air of the office. He doesn’t think it works very well.

“Your performance in today’s mission was...lacking,” Reginald says. Klaus is frozen under his gaze. “Care to explain?”

Five—hates him. The feeling always sits under his skin, constant, an itch that he can’t scratch. He doesn’t really have what counts as physical skin, now that he’s dead and a ghost, but that itch that always drove his insults and rebellious moods. But it boils, now, this hatred; this complete loathing for the man they call their father. And he can’t do anything to blow it off.

 _He’s dead tired_ , Five thinks angrily, punching through Reginald’s stupid face. _He hasn’t been sleeping well, which you should know, since you monitor us like a fucking creep_.

God, he really wishes he were corporeal enough for Reginald to actually feel his punches. He wishes he could do something, _anything_ , to get Klaus out of here; he’s never been the type to sit and stay on the sidelines. He remembers a quote he’d read in a book somewhere, a long time ago—he’d been forced to read some inane story by Vanya, who wanted to “read something fun, for once, Five.” _If you want something done right, do it yourself_. So, well...he’d spent the rest of his life doing exactly that.

But the thing he wants done isn’t something he can do himself, now. And he can’t even force himself to rely on someone else, because there’s no one he can communicate with other than Klaus, and Klaus is part of the problem he’s trying to solve. He absentmindedly sticks his hand through Reginald’s head and starts waving his arm up and down—at least he can be certain that Reginald is uncomfortable in some way, the same way Luther had been when Five started punching him earlier.

 _I could move things around, maybe_ , he muses, his eyes scanning the office. There are plenty of books and loose objects that he can pick up or push around, just enough to maybe unnerve Reginald. But Reginald isn’t aware of his presence, yet—the man has surveillance, yes, and cameras all over the mansion, but he isn’t always watching them, and he usually never watches them after dinner. So Five can safely assume that his ghostly presence is still unknown, and he doesn’t _want_ it to be known, so he’d rather not do something that would reveal his probable existence, like moving things around in the man’s office.

What else can he do, though? His eyes continue their path around the room as he thinks, and then they stop abruptly when they land on Klaus. Klaus, who is still standing in the middle of the room. Klaus, who looks more relaxed than before. Klaus, whose face seems to be twitching in an effort to hold back a _laugh_.

Five follows his brother’s gaze to his arm, which is still waving through Reginald’s face, and then— _oh,_ he thinks. Oh.

He can’t exactly get Klaus out of this situation, but...he can at least make the situation a little better than it is now, right? He’s always been a bit of a prankster, and though his tricks are usually on a bigger scale, and much more planning is involved, well—he’s seen a few videos, watched his siblings play around a bit before they started caring too much about themselves to fool around with each other, so he can probably improvise.  

The first thing he tries, of course, is the bunny-ear thing he sees so many kids do. They seem to find it funny, so. Why not.

The only reaction he gets from Klaus, though, is a slight uptick of one of his eyebrows, too minuscule for anyone to notice if they aren’t looking for it—a challenge. _Is that the best you can do?_ it seems to say, and Five grins widely, mischievously, in a way that he’d almost forgotten.

 _Well_ , he thinks, _time to up the ante, I suppose_.

He spends the next fifteen minutes of Reginald’s lecture doing as many ridiculous things as he can; he sticks his head through Reginald’s and makes exaggerated faces, he stands next to Reginald and mocks him—he even starts belting out random songs that Klaus had showed him when he’d managed to sneak out to use the computer at the library. He can’t remember the entirety of each song, though, so he mumble-sings some parts and he thinks he might’ve mashed two or more songs together at some point, but—it doesn’t matter that much, because he’s gotten exactly what he wanted.

Klaus looks less like he’s drowning on dry land, now. He’s still tense, of course, because there’s no way he can fully relax when being reprimanded by the one who brings him nothing but suffering. But the creases in his face have smoothed out, and even if his shoulders still carry some tension, his face doesn’t.

Reginald’s still going on and on, though—he has a surprising lung capacity, for someone who looks as old as he does. And, well, Five has one more idea for a distraction, something else he’d picked up from watching one of Klaus’s videos.

So he slides off the table and onto the floor and awkwardly, slowly, he starts—break dancing.

His face is scrunched slightly with the effort it takes to remember what the man had been doing in the video, but he thinks he gets the hang of it, eventually. And he continues, slowly, because Klaus looks almost like he’s going to explode from how stupidly funny it looks. He’s even biting his bottom lip, now, which Reginald seems to take as an expression of regret, or something, because he winds down and dismisses Klaus after a few more minutes.

“As punishment,” he says gravely, “you will spend tomorrow in the mausoleum.”

The mausoleum doesn’t scare Klaus as much as it had before, but Reginald doesn’t seem to know that. Klaus nods and manages to choke out a _“yessir!”_ before he all but runs out of the office.

Five follows smugly, smirking when Klaus finally breaks down in laughter about halfway to his room.

“You-you _suck_ at break dancing!” Klaus manages to wheeze out, his hands clutching his stomach as he leans against the wall. There are tears leaking from the corners of his eyes. “And-and your _singing!_ ”

“Yes,” Five agrees mildly, nodding. “Yes, I _am_ pretty horrible at both, aren’t I?”

Klaus all but collapses from the sheer force of his mirth. Five smiles.

All in a good day’s work.


	5. interlude

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> originally i had this as a sort of 5+1 thing but i got so tired of it and honestly i don't want to force it more than it already is? im not really proud of some parts but what can you do, i guess
> 
> i call this an extra/interlude but it's also sort of a bridge between the previous chapter and the next chapter, which will (hopefully) be the last!!
> 
> and im sorry for taking so long, but life got a lot more hectic, and also writer's block i guess. (more like i was stuck between "you've gotta work on your wips" and "but what about that new idea thats been fermenting in your brain for the past few weeks" and in the end i did exactly none of them) 
> 
> also i binged good omens and was mildly obsessed with it for a few weeks.
> 
> ANYWAY thank you for your patience, and thank you so much to those who commented during the unexpected hiatus!! it really helped me sit myself down and write lol

1.

“Vanya looked kinda sad, earlier,” Five says from behind him, and Klaus nearly jumps out of his skin. 

“Don’t scare me like that!” he yelps, dropping the random book he’d picked up in favor of clutching his chest and turning his head towards Five. Then he asks, “what? How can you even tell? Why are you telling me this?”

“I can just _tell_ ,” Five says, rolling his eyes, like that explains anything. 

“Okay...” Klaus says slowly, sitting up on his bed. “And? Why are you telling me this?”

Five gestures vaguely. “Go—talk to her, or something. I have some sheet music under my bed, unless someone’s gone through and taken them away, which is unlikely, so go grab some and bring it to her or something. It’s what I usually do. Did.”

“But—I was in the middle of reading something!”

“Yes, and I’m fully aware that it’s a miracle—”

“Hey! I read sometimes!”

Five rolls his eyes. “Yes, but very rarely do you read something titled _The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory._ ”

“It’s interesting!” Klaus says defensively.

“Yes, I know it is, but you usually read the more inane things, like that godforsaken _Harry Potter_ series.”

“Hey, don’t insult the magic! And anyway, that doesn’t change the fact that I was reading something, and I’d like to finish it!”

“You only read those kinds of books when you’re incredibly bored, Klaus.” 

“...Okay, maybe so,” Klaus says, “but—”

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Five interrupts, pinching the bridge of his nose, “could you just _go?_ ”

Klaus wonders if ghosts actually get headaches, or if Five is just being dramatic. Probably the latter. He grumbles as he stands up, leaving his book face down on his pillow while he stretches a bit and rolls his shoulders.

“Where did you say those music sheets were?” he asks, walking out of his room and heading towards Five’s.

“The _sheet music_ is under my bed, in a box,” Five says, following Klaus. “I’ll go grab it, actually, just go to Vanya’s room.”

“Okay.” Klaus shrugs and turns on his heel to head towards Vanya’s room while Five disappears in a flash of blue. He reappears again when Klaus knocks on Vanya’s door.

“Here,” Five says, thrusting the papers at Klaus, who grabs them just before Vanya opens the door a crack and peeks out.

“...Klaus?” she says, questioningly, but her confusion isn’t enough to cover the strange, sad loneliness etched in her face. “Why are you—”

“Hello, my dear sister!” Klaus says grandly. “I come with an offering!”

Five brings his hand to his forehead and sighs.

“I’m sorry, what?” Vanya asks, bewildered. She opens the door wider.

“Here, Five told me to bring you some sheet music,” Klaus says, waving the papers around. 

“Oh!” Vanya says, perking up slightly. All the confusion has left her. 

“He’s right here,” Klaus says, jerking a thumb to his right. The papers rustle with his movement, and Vanya turns her gaze towards them.

“These are for me?” she asks, reaching out, and Klaus hands over the sheets. She scans over the papers, then pauses and looks up and to Klaus’s right, where Five is. “Paganini?” she says anxiously. “Five, Paganini’s really hard, I don’t think I can—”

“Sure you can!” Klaus declares, grabbing her shoulders and turning her around to push her into her room. Five nods, agreeing with Klaus for once. “Five agrees!”

Vanya stares, wide-eyed, as Klaus finds her violin case and opens it with an “aha!” and then proceeds to shove her violin into her arms, along with the bow. 

“But—it’s _Paganini_ ,” she says, a little helplessly, the bow dangling from her fingers, and Klaus flops onto her bed, waving his hand dismissively.

“You’ve been playing for _years_ ,” he says. “I’m sure you can do it.”

“Have more confidence in yourself,” Five says, sitting cross-legged next to Klaus. “You’ll be fine, I know you will.”

Vanya inhales deeply when Klaus repeats Five’s words, and then she nods. 

“Okay,” she says firmly, “okay. I’ll practice. But, um—tomorrow.”

“Why don’t you start practicing now?” Klaus asks, pushing himself up on his elbows.

“It’s almost time for dinner,” Vanya says patiently, turning to put her violin back in the case.

“Then just play a quick song, or something,” Klaus says, flopping back down. “C’mon, let’s hear it!”

Vanya pauses.

“You want to...hear me play?”

Klaus frowns, confused. “Yeah, sure. I came all the way here, might as well. Why?”

Vanya picks up her violin and bow and moves to the center of her room slowly, hesitantly.

“Five was the only one who ever listened,” she says blankly, and—  

All at once, Klaus is hit by the sudden realization that Vanya is—alone. No one really _talks_ to her. No one really _interacts_ with her outside of accidental eye contact at the dining table. _And_ —Klaus glances at Five out of the corner of his eye— _she used to have Five, but now she doesn’t._ She has no one, and that’s not really a nice thing to have.

“I’ll listen, from now on,” he says abruptly, and Vanya stills, her bow resting on the violin’s strings. Five gives him an unreadable look. “I’ll come listen to you, whenever you want.”

Allison has Luther, and Luther has Allison. Klaus has Ben, and Ben has Klaus. Diego has Mom. Vanya _had_ Five, but now there is no one—and it doesn’t have to stay that way. It _won’t_ , not if Klaus has anything to say about it. No one deserves to be all alone.

“...Okay,” Vanya says eventually. She draws the bow across the violin, a long, low note. 

“Thank you,” she says quietly, a small smile on her lips, and then she begins to play.

 

2.

One night a week later has Klaus incredibly bored and once again flipping through the book titled _The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory. (God,_ the title is such a mouthful.) He’s maybe halfway through the book now, and no closer to figuring out why exactly Five and Ben have such a big interest in astrophysics. He drops the book on his face when Five teleports into his room.

“Please tell me you have something for me to do,” he nearly begs, his voice muffled by the book’s pages.

Five frowns at him, which he only sees because the book slides off his face and falls on the floor. It’s the usual _what-is-this-idiot-doing_ frown. 

“Well, no,” Five says, “but—” his eyes catch on the book lying face up on the floor— “maybe you could go to Ben’s room and read that with him. Or read some other book.”

Klaus is already shaking his head before Five finishes. “This is Ben’s reading alone time,” he says. “He doesn’t like it when I interrupt.”

(Granted, he’d only ever interrupted once, but that experience was enough for him to swear off doing it again. Ben had given him the cold shoulder for nearly a _month_ and it was _horrible._ The worst month of his life. He hadn’t known the boy could hold a grudge for that long.)

“I suppose he _does_ read alone now,” Five says, “but I used to jump into his room back when I was alive, and we’d just sit there and read together.”

“But that’s _boring_ ,” Klaus says, borderline whining. “How is sitting together in silence any fun?”

Five rolls his eyes. “It’s not about _fun,_ ” he says. “It’s just nice, being with someone else while you each do your own thing. And it’s peaceful. And you just feel less—alone, I guess.”

Klaus remembers the nights after he’d gone cold turkey, when his nightmares had left him sleepless and so, so scared. He remembers Five making him hot chocolate every night without prompting, remembers Five’s patience that seemed so unusually endless. (Five is always fast and always pushes forward without pause, but for his Klaus, for his siblings, it seems that he knows when it’s better to slow down and let them heal at their own pace.)

Klaus thinks about the nights when he’d wake up shivering and sweating, and he remembers the way his fear always faded so quickly when he saw Five next to him, not doing anything in particular—he’d be staring out the window, or he’d be reading a book, and he wouldn’t acknowledge Klaus’s sudden state of awareness past a quick glance—but Klaus would feel inexplicably _safe_ , and the fear would leave his tense muscles bit by bit until he felt warm and relaxed and comfortable again.

And he thinks he understands, a little, what Five means.

“Yeah,” he says out loud, and he’s looking straight at Five. “I think I get it.” 

Five just gives him a weird look, like he doesn’t understand why Klaus is staring at him. 

“So are you gonna go to Ben or not?” he asks, and Klaus shrugs, stands from his bed, bends down to pick up the book.

“I guess I will,” he says. “Are you gonna come too?”

Five pauses. “...No,” he says eventually. “No, I don’t think I will. I’ll probably go listen to Vanya practice or something.”

Klaus shrugs again. “Okay. See ya later.”

Five nods and disappears in a flash of blue, leaving Klaus to climb up the stairs to Ben’s room by himself.

“Hey Benny boy!” Klaus calls out, rapping his knuckles on Ben’s door. “Let’s hang out!”

The door opens to reveal a mildly annoyed Ben, who’s holding a book in his hand with a finger between the pages, stopping it from closing.

“I don’t feel like “hanging out” right now, Klaus—”

Klaus brings up his book and waves it in Ben’s face, effectively cutting off the other boy’s sentence.

“I thought I’d come and read with you,” he says, as though that's a completely normal thing for him to do. “I’ll be quiet, I promise.”

And he doesn’t know if it’s the promise that does it, or the little dark thing that lurks in Ben’s eyes, but the boy moves into his room after a brief moment of hesitation and lets Klaus in. Klaus closes the door with a soft click behind him, and then he settles on Ben’s bed like he owns the place.

The room is silent, for almost an hour. But it’s not the same oppressive silence that permeates the house, sometimes, when Klaus wakes up at some ungodly hour of the morning, fear still lingering in his body. This one is warm and comfortable and it doesn’t make him feel like he’s _alone_.

And he thinks—hopes—that it’s the same for Ben; it’s written in the way the boy relaxes gradually, the way the little dark thing in his eyes is chased away and replaced with a familiar gleam that comes when Ben learns something interesting.

“If you just want to read together,” Klaus offers quietly, “you can come to me. If you want. This is nice, I’d be down to do it again.”

Ben glances up, relaxed in a way that Klaus doesn’t ever remember seeing before. And Klaus realizes, now, that there is a big difference between _distracting_ Ben from his nightmares and just _being_ with Ben while he works through them himself. Both are good, he knows, but sometimes Ben needs one more than the other.

“Thanks, Klaus,” Ben says, and he sounds lighter than he has in weeks.

 

3.

“Klaus,” Five says. 

“Yeah?” Klaus says, not pausing in his quest for a nice, long bath after the mission they’d just returned from. It had been a little more... _exciting_ than usual—Luther’s plan fell to pieces when their opponents reacted differently to what they’d expected, and there’d been a few moments of disorganized panic before Luther managed to get them back into something resembling order. One would think they’d be more used to this kind of thing happening, but they honestly only seem to become more chaotically disorganized as the years pass. 

“Luther,” Five says, frowning. “Could you—check up on Luther, for a bit?”

“Why?” Klaus asks, a knee-jerk reaction. He’s never been that close to Luther, and it’s hard to imagine him having a problem. He’s Number One, their perfect leader, molded into their dear father’s perfect little soldier. 

Besides, they don’t have anything in common, and he’s not as much of a pushover as Diego can be sometimes. Klaus doesn’t even know how he would _begin_ to try and connect with Number One.

“Allison’s getting her wounds treated by Mom,” Five says, and yeah, obviously. Klaus remembers her getting hurt when Luther’s plan hadn’t quite worked out the way it was supposed to.

“And?”

“And there’s no one to check up Luther now, so you might as well go do it.”

Klaus frowns. “Why would anyone need to check up on Luther?”

“He’s got delusions of grandeur,” Five says flippantly. 

“That’s funny, coming from you.”

“Just go talk to him, for fuck’s sake.”

“Can it wait until _after_ I’ve taken a bath?”

Five rolls his eyes. “It won’t take long, just _go_.”

Klaus groans and turns towards Luther’s room, where the boy had locked himself up after a meeting with their father.

“What am I supposed to say?”

“I don’t know, figure something out.”

Klaus grumbles a bit before shrugging. Whatever. He’ll just wing it.

“Luther!” he calls, knocking on Luther’s door. “Yoohoo! I’m coming in!”

He pushes the door open cheerfully, not waiting for an answer, ready to barge in and bulldoze over any protests, only to pause when he sees Luther’s red, swollen eyes and a tell-tale wetness on the boy’s cheeks that he wipes away quickly.

“What do you want?” he asks, as if this is perfectly normal. 

“Why are you crying?” Klaus says instead of answering. He usually has more tact, but the shock of this scene seems to have blown away all his brain cells.

“It’s nothing,” Luther answers. “If you don’t need anything, leave.”

“Don’t listen to him,” Five says. Klaus wasn’t planning to anyway. 

“Why were you crying?” he asks again, closing the door behind him and moving to plop down next to Luther on his bed.

“It’s nothing,” Luther repeats, and _god_ he sounds so _tired_. “Dad got mad at me for messing up, so I started crying in my room like some stupid—”

He cuts himself off.

“He got mad at you for messing up?” Klaus questions, frowning slightly. “For messing up what?”

“Why are you here, Klaus?” Luther deflects. “Go bother Ben or something. Leave me alone.”

“No,” Klaus says, “not until you tell me what your problem is.”

“My _problem_ ,” Luther says acidly, “is that you won’t _listen_ to me.”

“Why were you crying?” Klaus asks stubbornly. Luther glares at him, but he doesn’t move.

“...I’m _weak_ ,” Luther finally says, probably realizing that Klaus is serious. “I’m a failure. Is that what you want to hear?”

“No,” Klaus says, as Five settles next to him. “What the fuck?”

“I messed up,” Luther continues, and it seems like now that he’s started, he can’t stop. “I messed up on the mission, I made a dumb plan that didn’t work, and now Allison is hurt and it’s my fault.”

“No plan survives first contact with the enemy,” Klaus says, and he doesn’t understand why this is affecting Luther so much. “I read that in a book somewhere, I think. People don’t always act within your expectations, you can’t expect your plan to go off without a hitch all the time. That doesn’t make you a failure, what the fuck?”

“He’s Number One,” Five says from beside him, and Klaus glances at him. “He’s our leader, he’s supposed to be perfect. He’s not allowed to make mistakes.”

“That’s bullshit,” Klaus says bluntly. “Nobody’s perfect, it’s impossible.”

And Five nods, gestures to Luther, who’s glaring down at his hands now, and—  _“Dad got mad at me for messing up.”_

Oh.

“Luther,” Klaus says, waiting for Luther to look up. He can’t believe he’s been so _stupid._ “Dad is an idiot and a shitty person and an even shittier dad.”

 _I’m a pretty shitty person too,_ he thinks, a little angrily. He’d somehow raised Luther to the same standards that their father had, and he hates himself a bit for it. 

“No he’s not,” Luther says automatically, and he’s looking defensive again, and Klaus hates that he couldn’t see this before. He’d thought that Luther was Reginald’s star student, that Luther had it the best out of all of them, but—he’d been suffering just as much as they had, only it had all been so much more well hidden, so much more... _poisonous_. “Dad’s not like that, he’s a good person—”

“No, he’s probably one of the shittiest people alive,” Klaus says, “but we’re not gonna argue about that now.”

“He’s not—”

“You’re not perfect, Luther,” Klaus interrupts, not letting Luther get another word in. Luther curls up a bit into himself, but Klaus pushes on. “ _Nobody’s_ perfect. Everyone has their flaws, and it’s impossible to get rid of them.”

Luther doesn’t look convinced.

“Would you expect any of us to be perfect?” Klaus asks. “Do you expect us to never make mistakes, to be like robots or something, built to do everything perfectly? Would you be mad at us for making a mistake that couldn’t be avoided?”

“...No,” Luther says eventually, frowning a little. “I wouldn’t blame you for something that isn’t your fault. That wouldn’t be fair.”

“Then why are you blaming yourself for something that isn’t your fault?”

“But it _was_ my fault,” Luther says. “I should’ve anticipated—”

“Luther,” Klaus says, “Luther. Did you _know_ that they would aim for Allison?”

“No, but—”

“ _Exactly_.” Klaus leans forward a bit. “So why are you blaming yourself for this when you couldn’t have known—”

“But I should’ve!” Luther yells. “I _should have_ known, I’m the leader, I’m supposed to _know_ —”

“Know what?” Klaus snorts. “Know _everything?_ Every little detail about every little thing? Not even Dad can do that. No human can do that.”

Luther glares at him, but Klaus refuses to stop.

“You’re _human_ , Luther, just like the rest of us.” Klaus sits back. “You shouldn’t be putting these expectations on yourself, and neither should Dad.”

“Get out,” Luther bites out. “ _Get out_.”

He stands and pulls Klaus up roughly by his arm, shoving him to the door.

“No,” Klaus says, trying to resist, but he’s no match against Luther’s super-strength. “Not until—”

“Klaus,” Five says. Klaus pauses, looks at Five, who gives him a warning look and shakes his head. “Drop it. Don’t push too far. You can’t help anyone that way.”

Klaus looks back at Luther, and he sees the frustration all over the teen’s face, the stubborn anger. Five’s right, he realizes. Five’s always right. He’ll just end up hurting the both of them if he tries to keep pushing.

“Okay,” he says, and he stops struggling. “Okay, I’ll leave. I’m sorry.”

The cold anger fades slowly from Luther’s face, and he slowly lets go of Klaus, who winces a bit. If he lifts up his sleeve, he’s pretty sure he’ll find a ring of bruises around his arm. Luther looks contrite, for a few seconds, but then he swallows and wipes the emotion from his face. Five shoots him a cold glare, though it’s ineffective since he’s kind of dead.

“I’m sorry,” Klaus repeats placatingly, backing out of the room, where Five waits silently. The last thing he sees before he closes the door is the little bit of doubt in Luther’s eyes, the silent contemplation.

It’s good enough for now.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi! sorry for the long wait, i accidentally dived headfirst into another fandom and finally managed to get enough motivation to come back and finish this lol
> 
> i'm sorry if it flows weird or something, but i typed this up in a caffeine-induced haze and it's currently 4 in the morning and my life is in shambles

The mission, as it seems prone to doing these days, promptly goes to shit.

Criminals are getting used to being met with a group of super-powered teenagers, it seems, because they’ve started bringing larger groups in hopes of overwhelming them with sheer numbers. They’ve also stopped hesitating when they realize that they’re fighting children. This particular group also seems to be smarter than the usual, because Luther’s plans A through C are thrown out of the proverbial window five minutes in.

It’s turned into a free-for-all, which is probably what the criminals wanted—Five knows that even with all their differences, the Umbrella Academy is much more efficient when they can all cover each other’s backs. Now, though, they’re all over the place, and Five is darting around, frustrated, yelling out at Klaus periodically when he sees an opponent coming in from his brother’s blind spot.

It’s the only thing he can do now. It doesn’t stop him from swinging an arm through a few of their heads though, no matter how ineffective it is.  

Still, even separated, his siblings are still forces to be reckoned with, so they eventually manage to take down all the mobsters that had come after them. The last one goes down with a rather high-pitched yelp, Allison hitting him over the head with a gun she’d picked up during the scuffle. She removes the bullets with practiced ease and throws it off to the side, the loud clatter echoing loudly in the suddenly quiet area.

All of them scan the area carefully and then relax, breathing heavily from exertion.

“Are we all okay?” Luther asks, when he’s managed to get enough air in his lungs to speak. 

Five restlessly darts around, checking over everyone even as they nod. The worst he can see are scrapes and slowly-forming bruises, so he settles back next to Klaus, who pretends to pat his head, and he scowls at the realization that his brother has grown even _taller_. Disgusting.

“Okay,” Luther breathes. “Okay.”

He straightens up, his breathing evening out. He stands in front of them, every inch the leader that he was made into, but Five’s gaze darts away from him when he sees a bit of movement out of the corner of his eye. He watches, his eyes widening, as one of the people that Luther had supposedly downed props himself onto his elbow and aims his gun.  

If this were an action movie, the scene probably would’ve happened in slow motion—first with the realization that lights his face, immediately followed by a dawning horror—but it’s not a movie, and there’s no _time_. 

“Klaus,” Five breathes, yells. “Luther—”

He knows he can’t do anything. He _knows_ . He’s a ghost, now; he’s been one for years. He’s used to it. He knows that he’ll phase through anything in contact with the living, _knows_ that his hand will phase through anything that _is_ living—but he tries anyway. He jumps, disappearing from Klaus’s side and reappearing next to Luther’s. Klaus seems to have seen what he’d seen too, because he starts calling out Luther’s name with a choked-off cry.

Five reaches out uselessly, and the gunshot rings loudly in his incorporeal ears. 

“Five?” Ben says, and he sounds almost...lost.

Five opens his eyes— _when had he closed them?_ —and all at once, he becomes aware of the feeling of fabric beneath his fingers, the sensation of warmth. 

“Oh my god,” he hears—a quiet, choked-off sound. Allison.

Five watches out of the corner of his eye as the man who’d shot at Luther goes down with a gurgle, one of Diego’s knives buried in his throat. But he’s more focused on the hand that’s wrapped around one of his wrists, on the feeling of the ground beneath his knees. 

“Five,” Luther says, staring up at him with wide, blue eyes. “You—”

 _I’m solid,_ Five thinks. _I’m_ —  

He jerks his head up away from Luther— _he’s fine, he’s alive, I did it, he’s alive_ —and looks up at Klaus, who is staring at him with the same wide-eyed shock that everyone else is. There is an electric blue glow around his hands that fades with every passing second, and Five _knows_ , somehow, that he doesn’t have time.

“Don’t tell dad,” he says sharply, wrenching his hand out of Luther’s grip and levering himself to his feet. His eyes scan over all of them, and for a second, he lets himself revel in the fact that their eyes are not going through him. “He can’t—”

“—know,” he finishes, but Klaus’s hands are no longer glowing, and Five phases through Luther when the boy clambers to his feet. 

“Th-that was Five, right?” Ben asks. “You all saw him?”

“Well,” Klaus starts, but Allison cuts him off.

“We _know_ you see him all the time, shut up.”

“I saw him,” Diego says. “He—”

“He saved me,” Luther says, looking down at his hand—the hand that he’d grabbed Five with when Five had pulled at him desperately. There’s blood dripping down his other arm, from where the bullet had grazed him. 

“If you’d been more careful, I wouldn’t have had to,” Five hisses. 

“He says you’re welcome and that you should be more careful next time,” Klaus says. Five swipes his hand through his brother’s head. 

“We need to report to dad,” Luther says, visibly trying to pull himself together. He looks around at all their downed opponents, making sure that none of them are moving. “The mission was successfully completed, and Klaus—”

“No,” Ben interrupts, his voice hard. He looks at Luther, his eyes flinty, and their leader flinches back slightly in shock. Allison and Diego breathe in sharply.

“Five said not to tell dad,” Ben says, relaxing slightly. “And I agree. He’ll only force Klaus through more training.”

“But if he’s gotten a new power,” Luther argues, “then he needs to learn how to control it!”

“I don’t know what it’s like for you, but what dad does isn’t _training_.” 

Five can’t help but admire the venom in Ben’s voice, the quiet determination. He’s not going to budge. What was that saying? _It’s always the quiet ones_.

Luther’s lips thin into a straight line, but he glances at Klaus’s face, pale at the thought of more training, and slumps slightly in defeat. 

“Fine. No one will tell dad,” he says, making eye contact with all of them, before directing his next words to Klaus, “But you need to learn how to control it. Five’s smart. He can probably help you, right?”

Five scoffs. “Of course I can. Who do you think I am?”

Klaus grins and shoots Five a thumbs-up. “He said he’d help,” he announces, and then he bounces over to Ben and slings an arm over the boy’s shoulders. “Benny boy! That was amazing! I didn’t know you had it in you!”

Five stares at his hand, opening and closing it. If he concentrates hard enough, he thinks he can still feel the scratchy fabric of the uniform, the human _warmth_ —  

He hadn’t known he’d missed it, until now.

* * *

 

It doesn’t actually take long for Klaus to figure it out. All he does is concentrate, and his hands glow blue, filling him with the same rush of power he’d felt only hours ago. And he knows for sure that it works when Five places a hand on the hardwood floor and traces over the grains carefully, like a child discovering something new for the first time.

“You’re solid,” he breathes, and then he reaches out carefully and draws his brother into a hug, trying not to lose concentration.

“I can _feel_ you,” he hears Five say, a quiet whisper, as though he hadn’t meant for it to leave his lips. 

Klaus can’t even bring himself to make fun of Five for catching feelings. All he can feel right now is the way Five’s hands tremble slightly as he brings them up, resting them carefully on Klaus’s back as though he still can’t believe that this is real. His hands clutch at Klaus’s shirt, his forehead resting on Klaus’s shoulder, and if he were anyone else, Klaus thinks he’d be crying. 

They sit on the floor, the room silent, until Klaus hears a tentative knock. 

“Klaus?”

“Vanya?” Klaus asks, a little confused. 

“I, um—” Vanya clears her throat. “I heard from Ben that—that you, um—”

Oh. _Oh._

“Come in,” Klaus says. Five draws back, a little, just enough to lift his head and turn towards the door, but he makes no move to remove himself. They watch as Vanya opens the door and pokes her head inside, her eyes widening when she sees Five, and then filling with tears.

“F-Five,” she chokes out, stumbling forward, her arms reaching out. Five lets one hand go, holds it out towards Vanya, who takes it carefully, as though afraid he’ll disappear at any moment. The door swings shut behind her, Klaus carefully reaching one leg out to push it closed. 

Five wordlessly tugs her hand, pulling her closer and then letting go to wrap his arm around her shoulders, pulling her into their hug. She cries, silently, her breathing shaky and uncontrolled.

“Five,” she manages to say, “I-I missed you.”

“Missed you too,” Five says quietly.

“Uh, guys?” Klaus laughs nervously. “I’m, uh...not sure how much longer I can keep this up.”

It feels kind of weird, like he’s getting a cramp in a muscle that doesn’t exist.

Vanya wipes her eyes and looks up at Five’s face, smiling. “Love you,” she says, and Five grins back.

“Love you too,” he says, and then the blue fades from Klaus’s hands, and his arm drops from where it had been resting on Five’s shoulders. Klaus collapses onto his back, panting. 

“Are you okay?” Five and Vanya ask in unison. Klaus barks out a laugh.

“I’m fine, just tired,” he says, waving a hand in the air. 

Five frowns. “We’re gonna have to work on extending the time,” he mutters to himself. “And maybe we can work on having him fight while making me corporeal. And then we can figure out how many ghosts he can...summon? Corporealize? In one go...”

Klaus doesn’t think he’s looking forward to the future very much. 

“Klaus,” Vanya says, and Klaus props himself up on his elbows so he can look at her.

“Yeah?”

“Thank you,” she says quietly, and then she reaches out and gives him a quick hug, a small smile on her lips. “I love you. Thank you for always being such a good brother.”

“Thanks for being a good sister,” Klaus returns, grinning widely. “Love you too!”

* * *

 

Five doesn’t know how Reginald finds out, but only a few days later, Klaus is called into his office. 

“You’ve finally begun to realize your full potential,” he begins, and Five doesn’t quite know what his own expression looks like, but he imagines it’s similar to the bleak horror dawning on Klaus’s. 

“With this,” he continues, “With your ability to summon a ghost into the realm of the living, you have opened new doors—new possibilities.”

Five tunes out the rest of the man’s speech. He doesn’t know how the man had found out—he doesn’t want to suspect any of his siblings, but he can’t quite think of any other way Reginald would know. It doesn’t matter right now, though. What matters is getting _out_.

“Call a family meeting,” he tells Klaus. “I have a plan.”

Klaus acknowledges him with a flick of his fingers. 

“Come to the mausoleum after breakfast tomorrow,” Reginald says, not noticing anything out of the ordinary. “We will begin your training then.”

“Yes sir,” Klaus manages to say, turning and leaving the office as fast as he can without running. He makes a beeline towards Luther’s room. 

It takes less than five minutes for all of them to assemble in Klaus’s room. They’ve set up a system, of sorts, since Five had taken it upon himself to call family meetings over the past two years. In the beginning, they’d all been confused about why Five would call family meetings only to have them talk to each other about training or what they’d picked up as a hobby, but now they don’t question it. Five’s sure that Ben knows, though, has seen the way their jagged edges have worn down.

“Make me corporeal,” Five commands, Klaus obeying without question. They all gasp a little as they watch Five fade into existence, but Five doesn’t waste time on pleasantries. 

“First order of business,” he says sharply, as authoritatively as he can. “Did any of you tell Reginald about Klaus’s ability?”

Immediately, he hears a chorus of _no_ ’s, and when he scans their faces, he sees no signs of a guilty conscience. Okay. He’ll have to investigate further into that issue, but for now, he’s going to operate under the assumption that he can trust all of them. 

He nods, once. “Alright. Second order of business.” He inhales deeply, even though he doesn’t need to breathe, and then he exhales. “We’re leaving.”

As expected, the room is completely silent for a few moments before it erupts into chaos.

“ _Leaving?_ What do you mean, _leaving—_ ”

“How? We’re not eighteen yet—”

“Wait, have you been planning—”

“What the _fuck—”_

“Everyone, _shut up_.”

Five settles back, satisfied when everyone quiets down and turns back to him, all of them sitting with various levels of tension. 

“Reginald found out about Klaus’s new power, somehow, so he’s going to up Klaus’s training.” Five crosses his arms over his chest. “We’re going to leave before that.”

“I’m leaving with you,” Vanya says, before anyone else can respond. They look at her, taken aback, but she only focuses on Five and Klaus. “I hate this place. If you’re leaving, then I’m leaving too.”

“Me too,” Ben seconds.

“Fuck yeah,” Diego says. “Stick it to the old man. I’m leaving too.”

Allison glances at Luther and then at the rest of them indecisively, before nodding firmly, her eyes hardening. “I’m going with you guys.”

Five smirks, and then he turns to Luther and holds out a hand. “What about you?” he asks, his eyes scrutinizing Luther’s face. Luther stares down at Five’s hand, but doesn’t make any move to grasp it. 

“...How are you going to do it?” he asks. “We’re still minors. We can’t defy dad. Besides, we don’t have money or anywhere to go.”

“I have money,” Five says. “I’ve been saving up since before I died. I probably have enough by now to give us a bit of leeway to find jobs. We can find a cheap place somewhere. I have a list, but it might be outdated. And we’re almost eighteen. We just need to last a few more months.”

“Just a few more months,” Luther repeats. “Why can’t we wait out those last few months here?”

Five purses his lips. “Reginald is going to make Klaus’s training worse,” he says, his voice hard. “I’m not going to let that happen. His training before I died was already enough to make him turn to drugs and alcohol.”

A beat of silence.

“Do you even have a plan?” Luther asks, but there’s already a note of defeat in his voice that Five grins at.  

“I have the bare bones of one,” he says. “Our leader can flesh out the details.”

Luther lets out a small laugh and picks his hand up, finally accepting Five’s. “Okay,” he says, because there’s nothing really keeping him here either—because he’s learned, by now, how to not hinge his entire self-worth on what Reginald thinks of him. “Okay, I’m in.”

He looks over at all of his siblings, who all look back with the same determined smile on their faces, the same resolved look in their eyes—they are united, for once, and Five can see the well-oiled team that Reginald had dreamed of creating. 

Diego claps Luther on the shoulder, devoid of his usual belligerence.

“Make us the best plan we’ve ever seen, leader.”

* * *

**Epilogue:**

“I can’t believe you would do this,” Klaus whispers, his eyes wide with betrayal and horror.

“I’m sorry,” Allison says quietly, her voice choked. “I’m so sorry it had to come to this.”

Klaus looks around the circle of siblings, but all he sees are bowed heads and shaking shoulders. “Traitors,” he breathes out. “Traitors, all of you.”

“You brought this upon yourself,” Five says solemnly.

“No!” Klaus all but shrieks, “This is all your fault!”

“No,” Ben says, “I’m pretty sure it was you.”

Vanya nods. “It was your fault.”

Diego and Luther glance at each other and shrug, before nodding too. Klaus stares at them incredulously.

“I can’t believe I ever trusted you,” he says, shaking.

“A horrible decision, really,” Allison says, slowly moving her hand towards the pile of cards in the center of their circle, heedless of Klaus’s growing horror. She places the card down with a dark finality, sealing Klaus’s fate.

 _“NOOO!”_ he wails, slamming his fists onto the floor. He collapses into the carpet, sobbing dramatically. 

Five smugly reaches over to the deck of Uno cards and picks out fourteen of them, placing them on Klaus’s head while the rest of their siblings roar with laughter. “Shouldn’t have tried to get me with a plus two,” he says, and Klaus reaches one hand out to grab at Five’s ankle.

“Have you no pity for your downed brother?!” he cries into the carpet.

“Absolutely not.”

Ben reaches over to pat Klaus’s head, carefully avoiding the pile of cards on the other’s head. “Better luck next time,” he says, his voice trembling with mirth.

“Et tu, Ben,” Klaus whimpers.

“Stop being so dramatic,” Diego says, rolling his eyes, though the smile on his face belies his exasperation. 

Suddenly, a loud ringing noise breaks through Klaus’s dramatics, and everyone freezes. 

“Oh god, it’s almost nine,” someone says, and all at once, the room bursts into action. 

“Vanya, get the remote,” Luther commands, dropping his cards into the pile at the center. “Ben, make some popcorn.”

Vanya flings her cards away and all but dives towards the remote sitting on the sofa, turning the TV on. Klaus helps Five put the cards away, shoving them into the box haphazardly and putting the set into the small cabinet next to the television set, before jumping onto the sofa and settling in next to Vanya. From the kitchen, the microwave hums to life, soon followed by the familiar popping sound of instant popcorn. 

“What channel is the show airing on?” Luther asks, relocating to the area of the floor in front of the sofa.

“Fox, I think?” Allison responds, from where she’s claimed the single recliner. “FXX, or something.”

Diego picks up the TV guide and tosses it towards Five. “Five—”

“On it,” Five says, catching it and flipping through the pages. “691,” he says to Vanya, who promptly punches the numbers into the remote. 

The opening theme plays just as Ben walks into the room with a bowl of freshly popped popcorn, plopping onto the floor between Luther and Diego. They all watch the show silently, Klaus reaching over Ben’s shoulder every so often to grab a handful of popcorn that Vanya steals from. 

“There she is,” Diego says suddenly, sitting up straight. 

“Where?” Luther asks, squinting at the TV.

“There!” Diego hisses, jabbing a finger towards the screen. “Right there, coming in through those doors—”

“I see her, I see her!” Klaus exclaims excitedly. 

“It’s just a minor role,” Allison says, a tiny bit bashful. “You don’t have to get so excited over it.”

“But it’s your first role,” Vanya says, shooting her a quick smile.

“And you’re our sister,” Ben adds. “We’ll be proud of whatever you do.”

Allison can’t quite hide the wide smile that grows on her face, unbidden.

“You’re so good at acting,” Klaus says, biting down on a piece of popcorn. “If no one picks you up for a big role soon, they’re all idiots.”

“I’m sure you’d give her a run for her money in the acting department,” Five says, rolling his eyes, and Allison snorts.

 _“Have you no pity for your downed brother?!”_ she mimics, laughing and batting away the popcorn kernel that Klaus throws at her. 

“Uno is serious business,” he sniffs haughtily, leaning an elbow on top of Five’s head and ignoring the boy’s attempt to push it off. 

“Shh, she’s speaking,” Luther says, and everyone falls silent, staring at the screen with rapt attention. 

Sometimes Klaus still can’t believe it—can’t believe that they’re free, that they’ve _been_ free for a while. It still feels like a dream, like he’ll wake up one day and he’ll be in his room in that mansion and it’ll turn out that none of this had been real; that Allison had never gotten a role in a TV show, that Diego had never joined the police academy, and that Luther had never picked up a job as a mechanic.

But it’s days like these that he _knows_ they made it. They’re free from their father’s rule. They’re all moving on, learning how to live for themselves, and the best part of it is—

They’re doing it _together._

**Author's Note:**

> please leave a comment on anything you liked or disliked!


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